I have a question about Dealing with Bad Memory (RAM):

Is the following a memory problem or not? I upgraded my computer (motherboard,CPU and Ram)to 768Mb Ram. Everything works fine but certain programs (always the same programs), give me a message "not enough memory to run this program." Some program disks, e.g. a Comcast upgrade, I can't even look at with Windows Explorer because of this message. Unrelated but, occasionally Norton 2001 chimes in with a message of "dangerously low memory." What gives? I'd appreciate any and all comments Tamas

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Tamas,

Your problem is two fold. The first is to tell Windows not to use so much memory 
for it's cache. You can do this by going to Start then Run and typing in MSCONFIG.
After clicking OK, click on the Advanced button. Go to and check Limit Memory to 
and enter 512. (this will render the 256meg over 512 not used).

It sucks but this is a known issue with Windows. It simply was never developed to 
handle this much memory because none of us could afford it or our motherboards were 
not able to have as much. Now that prices have dropped, we are all going out to buy 
more memory only to find out that our operating system can't handle it!

Symantec is finally admitting that their utilities program can't handle more than 
256meg! They offer a 'workaround' but it still does not work on systems with more 
that 256meg.

They (Symantec) have not announced a fix. Nor do they seem concerned at all that 
their product is flawed. I suppose they, like Microsoft, never anticipated RAM prices 
dropping to the point where all of us 'common folk' would have this much memory in 
our computers.

What is really wrong about this and ticks me off the most is that both Microsoft 
and Symantec have known about this limitation for months, perhaps years! It obviously 
was never a 'high priority' concern to them because the majority of their customer 
base didn't have this much RAM installed. So nobody complained about it.

We should all write to them now to let them know how displeased we are about this.

One final but drastic thing you could try is to pull a stick of memory out of your 
computer and actually run with less.(Maybe get your money back?). 

Again, this sucks, but I don't see either company addressing this as an 'issue'. 
I wouldn't look for a software fix for quite some time (if at all!).

I hope this helps. 
I suggest you try Microsoft and Symantec web sites to get further information. 

Good luck,
Chaz






On Friday, August 17, 2001 at 5:41 pm, Tamas Frecska wrote:
>I have a question about Dealing 
>with Bad Memory (RAM):

>Is the following a memory problem or not? I upgraded my computer (motherboard,CPU 
>and Ram)to 768Mb Ram. Everything works fine but certain programs (always the same 
>programs), give me a message "not enough memory to run this program." Some program 
>disks, e.g. a Comcast upgrade, I can't even look at with Windows Explorer because 
>of this message. Unrelated but, occasionally Norton 2001 chimes in with a message 
>of "dangerously low memory."  What gives? I'd appreciate any and all comments
>Tamas
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Are you sure this is a 'problem' with Symantec? I've been using Norton Util's and Antivirus for years without ever hearing that. I have however known about the issues with MS operating systems (some, not all.......NT/2000 don't seem to be bothered but then, they're a heavy duty network operating system made to run on multi processor servers with 1 GB of RAM and over). I recently went out and bought another 256 MB stick of RAM and added it to my 128 and have had NO problems or 'out of memory' errors from Norton. Also, I've never heard of anyone else having the same problem. It could be the 'out of memory' error Symantec gives you is directly related to the windows problem encountered when one exceeds 512 MB's of RAM. I will however go and do some reading at symantec's site in regard to this. As near as I can figure, if it is an issue....it must be an issue with the 9x/ME OS's.

What people need to remember is that even though RAM itself is cheap....you have to ask yourself, "Do I really need more RAM, or do I just want to have the additional bragging rights!?!?" To the best of my knowledge, unless you're running very high end graphical programs like autocad or softimage, you won't ever need more than 512 much less actually use that much. I've done some benchmarking on my system with the 384 MB's of RAM and even when I run several memory intensive programs at the same time, I rarely use all of my available RAM. Unless you plan on running one of the aforementioned programs, or others like them and playing games at the same time....I really can't see ever using all your RAM at one time. A lot of people seem to think adding more RAM will somehow 'speed up' their systems....not so, it will improve performance with a lot of software, but there comes a point where you will be spending money on RAM that will be sitting in the slot but basically being unused. As a rule of thumb........for most home computing I've found 128 MB's to be just about all anyone would need. For the serious gamer 256 seems to fit nicely. Anymore and you end up with RAM sitting idle.......a waste of $ in my books........no matter how cheap the RAM is.




On Sunday, August 19, 2001 at 2:05 pm, Charles wrote:

>Tamas,
>
>Your problem is two fold. The first is to tell Windows not to use so much memory 
>for it's cache. You can do this by going to Start then Run and typing in MSCONFIG.
>After clicking OK, click on the Advanced button. Go to and check Limit Memory to 
>and enter 512. (this will render the 256meg over 512 not used).
>
>It sucks but this is a known issue with Windows. It simply was never developed to 
>handle this much memory because none of us could afford it or our motherboards were 
>not able to have as much. Now that prices have dropped, we are all going out to 
buy 
>more memory only to find out that our operating system can't handle it!
>
>Symantec is finally admitting that their utilities program can't handle more than 
>256meg! They offer a 'workaround' but it still does not work on systems with more 
>that 256meg.
>
>They (Symantec) have not announced a fix. Nor do they seem concerned at all that 
>their product is flawed. I suppose they, like Microsoft, never anticipated RAM prices 
>dropping to the point where all of us 'common folk' would have this much memory 
in 
>our computers.
>
>What is really wrong about this and ticks me off the most is that both Microsoft 
>and Symantec have known about this limitation for months, perhaps years! It obviously 
>was never a 'high priority' concern to them because the majority of their customer 
>base didn't have this much RAM installed. So nobody complained about it.
>
>We should all write to them now to let them know how displeased we are about this.
>
>One final but drastic thing you could try is to pull a stick of memory out of your 
>computer and actually run with less.(Maybe get your money back?). 
>
>Again, this sucks, but I don't see either company addressing this as an 'issue'. 
>I wouldn't look for a software fix for quite some time (if at all!).
>
>I hope this helps. 
>I suggest you try Microsoft and Symantec web sites to get further information. 
>
>Good luck,
>Chaz

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

On Sunday, August 19, 2001 at 2:05 pm, Charles wrote:

>Tamas,
>
>Your problem is two fold. The first is to tell Windows not to use so much memory 
>for it's cache. You can do this by going to Start then Run and typing in MSCONFIG.
>After clicking OK, click on the Advanced button. Go to and check Limit Memory to 
>and enter 512. (this will render the 256meg over 512 not used).
>
>It sucks but this is a known issue with Windows. It simply was never developed to 
>handle this much memory because none of us could afford it or our motherboards were 
>not able to have as much. Now that prices have dropped, we are all going out to 
buy 
>more memory only to find out that our operating system can't handle it!
>
>Symantec is finally admitting that their utilities program can't handle more than 
>256meg! They offer a 'workaround' but it still does not work on systems with more 
>that 256meg.
>
>They (Symantec) have not announced a fix. Nor do they seem concerned at all that 
>their product is flawed. I suppose they, like Microsoft, never anticipated RAM prices 
>dropping to the point where all of us 'common folk' would have this much memory 
in 
>our computers.
>
>What is really wrong about this and ticks me off the most is that both Microsoft 
>and Symantec have known about this limitation for months, perhaps years! It obviously 
>was never a 'high priority' concern to them because the majority of their customer 
>base didn't have this much RAM installed. So nobody complained about it.
>
>We should all write to them now to let them know how displeased we are about this.
>
>One final but drastic thing you could try is to pull a stick of memory out of your 
>computer and actually run with less.(Maybe get your money back?). 
>
>Again, this sucks, but I don't see either company addressing this as an 'issue'. 
>I wouldn't look for a software fix for quite some time (if at all!).
>
>I hope this helps. 
>I suggest you try Microsoft and Symantec web sites to get further information. 
>
>Good luck,
>Chaz
>
>
>



>On Friday, August 17, 2001 at 5:41 pm, Tamas Frecska wrote:
>>I have a question about Dealing 
>>with Bad Memory (RAM):

>>Is the following a memory problem or not? I upgraded my computer (motherboard,CPU 
>>and Ram)to 768Mb Ram. Everything works fine but certain programs (always the same 
>>programs), give me a message "not enough memory to run this program." Some program 
>>disks, e.g. a Comcast upgrade, I can't even look at with Windows Explorer because 
>>of this message. Unrelated but, occasionally Norton 2001 chimes in with a message 
>>of "dangerously low memory."  What gives? I'd appreciate any and all comments
>>Tamas
>>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Curt,

I'm not 'sure' of anything but death and taxes!

I know one thing. I can't test my 512meg of memory using Norton Utilities 2001 (SystemWorks) 
without getting repeated (false positive) errors and if I run any of the 'Doctor' 
products in the background, NAV gives me "System resources running very low; NAV 
Alert may not operate properly".

SystemWorks runs great and doesn't interfere with my system as long as I don't use 
it! Exactly why I bought it! I bought it so I couldn't use it! 

I think you also answered your own question. More RAM does make software run better. 
I run a lot of CPU intensive and graphic games, and I can tell you that the only 
reason I'm limited to how much memory gets used is an OS issue. 

We computer users have had the "If I only had more RAM, my computer would fly!" drummed 
into our head since we bought our first system. 

So now I've got more g.d. RAM then I know what to do with and guess what? My system 
doesn't need it? My system OS can't handle this much RAM? This is unacceptable! 

I agree that having 512meg RAM is more than ample for any user. Did I buy more RAM 
when it became affordable because I wanted additional 'bragging rights'?

ABSOL(f**k**g)LUTELY!







On Sunday, August 19, 2001 at 3:00 pm, Curt R wrote:
>
Are you sure this is a 'problem' with Symantec?  I've been using Norton Util's 
>and Antivirus for years without ever hearing that.  I have however known about the 
>issues with MS operating systems (some, not all.......NT/2000 don't seem to be bothered 
>but then, they're a heavy duty network operating system made to run on multi processor 
>servers with 1 GB of RAM and over).  I recently went out and bought another 256 
MB 
>stick of RAM and added it to my 128 and have had NO problems or 'out of memory' 
errors 
>from Norton.  Also, I've never heard of anyone else having the same problem.  It 
>could be the 'out of memory' error Symantec gives you is directly related to the 
>windows problem encountered when one exceeds 512 MB's of RAM.  I will however go 
>and do some reading at symantec's site in regard to this.  As near as I can figure, 
>if it is an issue....it must be an issue with the 9x/ME OS's.  
What people need 
>to remember is that even though RAM itself is cheap....you have to ask yourself, 
>"Do I really need more RAM, or do I just want to have the additional bragging rights!?!?" 
> To the best of my knowledge, unless you're running very high end graphical programs 
>like autocad or softimage, you won't ever need more than 512 much less actually 
use 
>that much.  I've done some benchmarking on my system with the 384 MB's of RAM and 
>even when I run several memory intensive programs at the same time, I rarely use 
>all of my available RAM.  Unless you plan on running one of the aforementioned programs, 
>or others like them and playing games at the same time....I really can't see ever 
>using all your RAM at one time.  A lot of people seem to think adding more RAM will 
>somehow 'speed up' their systems....not so, it will improve performance with a lot 
>of software, but there comes a point where you will be spending money on RAM that 
>will be sitting in the slot but basically being unused.  As a rule of thumb........for 
>most home computing I've found 128 MB's to be just about all anyone would need. 
 
>For the serious gamer 256 seems to fit nicely.  Anymore and you end up with RAM 
sitting 
>idle.......a waste of $ in my books........no matter how cheap the RAM is.


>
>



>On Sunday, August 19, 2001 at 2:05 pm, Charles wrote:
>
>>Tamas,
>>
>>Your problem is two fold. The first is to tell Windows not to use so much memory 
>>for it's cache. You can do this by going to Start then Run and typing in MSCONFIG.
>>After clicking OK, click on the Advanced button. Go to and check Limit Memory to 
>>and enter 512. (this will render the 256meg over 512 not used).
>>
>>It sucks but this is a known issue with Windows. It simply was never developed 
to 
>>handle this much memory because none of us could afford it or our motherboards 
were 
>>not able to have as much. Now that prices have dropped, we are all going out to 
>buy 
>>more memory only to find out that our operating system can't handle it!
>>
>>Symantec is finally admitting that their utilities program can't handle more than 
>>256meg! They offer a 'workaround' but it still does not work on systems with more 
>>that 256meg.
>>
>>They (Symantec) have not announced a fix. Nor do they seem concerned at all that 
>>their product is flawed. I suppose they, like Microsoft, never anticipated RAM 
prices 
>>dropping to the point where all of us 'common folk' would have this much memory 
>in 
>>our computers.
>>
>>What is really wrong about this and ticks me off the most is that both Microsoft 
>>and Symantec have known about this limitation for months, perhaps years! It obviously 
>>was never a 'high priority' concern to them because the majority of their customer 
>>base didn't have this much RAM installed. So nobody complained about it.
>>
>>We should all write to them now to let them know how displeased we are about this.
>>
>>One final but drastic thing you could try is to pull a stick of memory out of your 
>>computer and actually run with less.(Maybe get your money back?). 
>>
>>Again, this sucks, but I don't see either company addressing this as an 'issue'. 
>>I wouldn't look for a software fix for quite some time (if at all!).
>>
>>I hope this helps. 
>>I suggest you try Microsoft and Symantec web sites to get further information. 
>>
>>Good luck,
>>Chaz



[Reply or follow-up to this message]

It's a little late to be quoting verbatim references but the out of memory error is not due to bad ram. I have it more than once, it's a consequence of over enthusiastic tweaking causing damage to dlls and the other stuff windows 98 is prone to. Couple of interesting points. Norton Utilities, as great as it is, can lock up your disc, or portions of it, causing some very strange things, even after it has been removed. I've currently got a drive J: which windows can see but not format, and norton and other diagnostics tell me a file utility has it locked. The only possible cause of this is NU which was removed prior to W98 reinstall, but because it was on another drive, causes all sorts of confusion. With all the extra ram, you can use it to run windows in. So you are using real ram instead of virtual. If you go over to Tek-Tips (just put that in your address bar) there's an FAQ on the Win 98 forum which explains how to use the extra ram instead of virtual ram, with apparently lightening results. Presently, I'm only using 128, but it's a high grade RAM (PNY) and find this amount faster than when I had 290 in of cheap stuff. So, to be honest I think the extra RAM is just a waste of money.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Those suggestions are all good, but there is one fundamental problem. All Windows OSs based on the Windows 9x kernel (Windows 95, 95a, 95 OSR2 - 2.5 (B and C), 98, 98SE, ME) have a problem with more than 512MB of memory loaded on a system. Fortunately, Windows NT, 2000, XP do not have such a problem because they are based on, in my opinion, the better NT kernel. Try taking out one or more of your DIMMs until you have less than 512MB in the system and try some of the same tasks --Just a suggestion -=Radalfo=-


On Sunday, August 19, 2001 at 2:05 pm, Charles wrote:

>Tamas,
>
>Your problem is two fold. The first is to tell Windows not to use so much memory 
>for it's cache. You can do this by going to Start then Run and typing in MSCONFIG.
>After clicking OK, click on the Advanced button. Go to and check Limit Memory to 
>and enter 512. (this will render the 256meg over 512 not used).
>
>It sucks but this is a known issue with Windows. It simply was never developed to 
>handle this much memory because none of us could afford it or our motherboards were 
>not able to have as much. Now that prices have dropped, we are all going out to 
buy 
>more memory only to find out that our operating system can't handle it!
>
>Symantec is finally admitting that their utilities program can't handle more than 
>256meg! They offer a 'workaround' but it still does not work on systems with more 
>that 256meg.
>
>They (Symantec) have not announced a fix. Nor do they seem concerned at all that 
>their product is flawed. I suppose they, like Microsoft, never anticipated RAM prices 
>dropping to the point where all of us 'common folk' would have this much memory 
in 
>our computers.
>
>What is really wrong about this and ticks me off the most is that both Microsoft 
>and Symantec have known about this limitation for months, perhaps years! It obviously 
>was never a 'high priority' concern to them because the majority of their customer 
>base didn't have this much RAM installed. So nobody complained about it.
>
>We should all write to them now to let them know how displeased we are about this.
>
>One final but drastic thing you could try is to pull a stick of memory out of your 
>computer and actually run with less.(Maybe get your money back?). 
>
>Again, this sucks, but I don't see either company addressing this as an 'issue'. 
>I wouldn't look for a software fix for quite some time (if at all!).
>
>I hope this helps. 
>I suggest you try Microsoft and Symantec web sites to get further information. 
>
>Good luck,
>Chaz
>
>
>



>On Friday, August 17, 2001 at 5:41 pm, Tamas Frecska wrote:
>I have a question about Dealing 
>with Bad Memory (RAM):

>Is the following a memory problem or not? I upgraded my computer (motherboard,CPU 
>and Ram)to 768Mb Ram. Everything works fine but certain programs (always the same 
>programs), give me a message "not enough memory to run this program." Some program 
>disks, e.g. a Comcast upgrade, I can't even look at with Windows Explorer because 
>of this message. Unrelated but, occasionally Norton 2001 chimes in with a message 
>of "dangerously low memory."  What gives? I'd appreciate any and all comments
>Tamas
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I've come across the same problem so I did a bit of searching for a possible solution. None found unfortunately but I did find a good site that seemed to explain the problem. Here it is: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/14967.html Simply Windows ME can't handle anything above 512MB RAM. They suggest upgrading to Windows 2000 (or even XP) which can. Seems as if Microsoft have found another way of making me buy their latest operating system.


On Friday, August 17, 2001 at 5:41 pm, Tamas Frecska wrote:
>I have a question about Dealing
>with Bad Memory (RAM):

>Is the following a memory problem or not? I upgraded my computer (motherboard,CPU
>and Ram)to 768Mb Ram. Everything works fine but certain programs (always the same
>programs), give me a message "not enough memory to run this program." Some program
>disks, e.g. a Comcast upgrade, I can't even look at with Windows Explorer because
>of this message. Unrelated but, occasionally Norton 2001 chimes in with a message
>of "dangerously low memory." What gives? I'd appreciate any and all comments
>Tamas
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Actually I think I've just found a solution to this problem. It is because of ME's problem with VCache so limiting the amount it can use for this seems to work. This is how to do it:

Run msconfig
Go to system.ini
Expand the [vcache] (there should just be an empty space below it)
Click the space below it then click the edit button
Type: maxfilecache=512000
Apply this & close down your PC
Install the extra memory above 512MB & restart PC
BIOS detects memory above 512MB (as usual)
Windows ME should start OK now (mine did)
Go to System in the Control Panel. This should show that it has detected all your memory.


I've run my PC for a while now with no problems. Please tell me if this works for you. I hope it does.

Russ.


On Friday, February 1, 2002 at 12:51 pm, russell gough wrote:
>I've come across the same problem so I did a bit of searching for a possible solution.
>None found unfortunately but I did find a good site that seemed to explain the problem.
>Here it is:
>
>http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/14967.html
>
>Simply Windows ME can't handle anything above 512MB RAM. They suggest upgrading to
>Windows 2000 (or even XP) which can.
>
>Seems as if Microsoft have found another way of making me buy their latest operating
>system.
>
>
>


>On Friday, August 17, 2001 at 5:41 pm, Tamas Frecska wrote:
>I have a question about Dealing
>with Bad Memory (RAM):

>Is the following a memory problem or not? I upgraded my computer (motherboard,CPU
>and Ram)to 768Mb Ram. Everything works fine but certain programs (always the same
>programs), give me a message "not enough memory to run this program." Some program
>disks, e.g. a Comcast upgrade, I can't even look at with Windows Explorer because
>of this message. Unrelated but, occasionally Norton 2001 chimes in with a message
>of "dangerously low memory." What gives? I'd appreciate any and all comments
>Tamas
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I ran Norton on this windows 98se system for years with no issues--now it crashes when updating due to insufficient memory. I just upgraded to 1.5 gig and had to limit the pagefile setting and vcache (in your sustem32 file) so win 98 could boot succesfully. Norton is the only program doing this and i thjink it may be that it is ignoring the windows limits I set on ram access and trying to use it all like windows would normally. That would cause the problem anyway. FYI, Norton CAN really mess up your system when uninstalled. AVG free is a great, low bandwidth program for antivirus on an older pc. Clean uninstall too. Lastly--I totally dispute the "never need more than 128 mb statement earlier. You will if you have to fix hard drive problems or run deep diagnostics and fixes notice the difference. 512 mb is really a good standard for the average user now and no les than 256 mb certainly. It takes a loooong time to reinstall windows, remove spyware and run antivirus and diagnostic/repair programs on a 128 mb machine. I maxed my old pc out from 256mb to 768 mb and many programs showed marked improvements--very noticable.


On Tuesday, September 18, 2001 at 4:47 pm, Radalfo Daniels wrote:
>Those suggestions are all good, but there is one fundamental problem. All Windows
>OSs based on the Windows 9x kernel (Windows 95, 95a, 95 OSR2 - 2.5 (B and C), 98,
>98SE, ME) have a problem with more than 512MB of memory loaded on a system. Fortunately,
>Windows NT, 2000, XP do not have such a problem because they are based on, in my
>opinion, the better NT kernel. Try taking out one or more of your DIMMs until you
>have less than 512MB in the system and try some of the same tasks
>--Just a suggestion
>-=Radalfo=-
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Thank you for this solution. I have a dual boot system with ME on one partition and Win2K on the other. I just added new RAM to 1GB and kept getting "not enough memory" error message for certain programs in Windows ME, effecting even starting up DOS programs. Limiting the memory to 512MB has removed these error messages completely, as well as stopping freezes or the mouse cursor vanishing. So thanks for your solution, Joseph


On Sunday, August 19, 2001 at 2:05 pm, Charles wrote:
>
>Tamas,
>
>Your problem is two fold. The first is to tell Windows not to use so much memory
>for it's cache. You can do this by going to Start then Run and typing in MSCONFIG.
>After clicking OK, click on the Advanced button. Go to and check Limit Memory to
>and enter 512. (this will render the 256meg over 512 not used).
>
>It sucks but this is a known issue with Windows. It simply was never developed to
>handle this much memory because none of us could afford it or our motherboards were
>not able to have as much. Now that prices have dropped, we are all going out to buy
>more memory only to find out that our operating system can't handle it!
>
>Symantec is finally admitting that their utilities program can't handle more than
>256meg! They offer a 'workaround' but it still does not work on systems with more
>that 256meg.
>
>They (Symantec) have not announced a fix. Nor do they seem concerned at all that
>their product is flawed. I suppose they, like Microsoft, never anticipated RAM prices
>dropping to the point where all of us 'common folk' would have this much memory in
>our computers.
>
>What is really wrong about this and ticks me off the most is that both Microsoft
>and Symantec have known about this limitation for months, perhaps years! It obviously
>was never a 'high priority' concern to them because the majority of their customer
>base didn't have this much RAM installed. So nobody complained about it.
>
>We should all write to them now to let them know how displeased we are about this.
>
>One final but drastic thing you could try is to pull a stick of memory out of your
>computer and actually run with less.(Maybe get your money back?).
>
>Again, this sucks, but I don't see either company addressing this as an 'issue'.
>I wouldn't look for a software fix for quite some time (if at all!).
>
>I hope this helps.
>I suggest you try Microsoft and Symantec web sites to get further information.
>
>Good luck,
>Chaz
>
>

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