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re: Question about 'Stop Windows from Wildly Accessing your Hard Disk'
Wednesday, June 19, 2002 at 4:25 pm
Windows 98 Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by JmC
(14166 messages posted)
EXCEPTION No. 1: For systems with more than 128 MB of RAM, setting a VCache maximum
of about 70% of your total RAM is recommended as prophylaxis against run-away VCache
growth in rare, specialized situations. (A tip of the hat to MS-MVPs Ron Martell,
Ovidiu Popa, and Alex Nichol for months of experimentation and documentation of these
details and recommendations.)
EXCEPTION No. 2: VCache increasing above 512 MB can create serious memory handling
problems. If you have more than 512 MB of RAM, a VCache maximum of 524,288 KB (or
a little less) is recommended. This is obtained by adding a MaxFileCache=x entry
in the [vcache] section of SYSTEM.INI, where x is the maximum value you wish to set.
VCache is limited internally to a maximum cache size of 800 MB. The problem is that,
on computers with large amounts of RAM, the maximum VCache size can be large enough
that it consumes all of the available addresses in the system arena, leaving no virtual
memory addresses available for other functions such as opening an MS-DOS prompt.
This problem may occur more easily if you have an AGP video adapter: The AGP aperture
is also mapped to addresses in the system arena, and if VCache is using its entire
800 MB allowance and an AGP video adapter has a 128 MB aperture mapped, there will
be very little address space remaining for other system code and data that must occupy
the available range of virtual addresses.
EXCEPTION No. 3: For systems with more than 1 GB of RAM, the defaults in Windows
98 or ME can cause continuous rebooting of the computer, or to hangs or serial reboots
during the Windows upgrade process. To resolve this problem, add a MaxPhysPage=40000
entry in the [386enh] section of SYSTEM.INI. This effectively limits the amount of
RAM Windows can access to 1 GB. (Microsoft limits ths recommendation to systems having
more than 1.5 GB of RAM, but the solution is to roll it back to 1 GB. See MSKB Q304943.)
Microsoft has now flatly stated that, “Windows Me and Windows 98 are not designed
to handle more than 1 GB or RAM. More than 1 GB can lead to potential system instability.”
On Wednesday, June 19, 2002 at 10:47 am, Rachel51 wrote:
>I have a question about Stop
>Windows from Wildly Accessing your Hard Disk:
>
>The place I bought my computer placed an extra Ram chip for me. I now
>have 240 Megs. But this is what's happening since they placed the
>chip:
>
>1. I can no longer run my programs as I did before without running out
> of RAM. Run out of resources all the time.
>
>I'm monitoring with Norton and this is what I see. The virtial
> memory now has over 1685 MGs of memory. None of it is being used,
> the needle stays constant. I checked in properties and the computer
> is handling VM which I will change according to your guidelines.
>
>I have Windows98SE (20Gigs)
>
>All I have opened at the moment is the internet, Norton Utilites,
>Webshot. (I used to have open Illustrator, photoshop and Kazaa before
> all of this with no problems)
>My readings at the moment are: GDI 38%, RAM 60 (out of 240!) free
> resources 65%.
>
>When I open vcache nothing shows up (is it hidden? I can to it to add
>your guidelines of min and max as in the article) My swap files reads 126,976KB
>
>Is there anything else that would be causing the lack of resources?
> Regretfully my hardrive is not partitioned. Can I still do this without
>uninstalling Windows?
>
>I appreciate this website immensely. I have recommended to all of
>my friends.
>
>Thanks a bunch.
>Rachel51
>
>
>
>
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 |  | re: Question about 'Stop Windows from Wildly Accessing your Hard Disk' (JmC: Wed, Jun 19, 2002, 4:25 pm) |
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