Win98 Virtual Memory

i have a Win98 computer with 1GB of RAM and a 120GB hard drive. the hard drive has one 111GB partition.

if i go to the virtual memory window, it says drive C: has -19000MB free, and so it refuses to enabled any virtual memory

if i was the one who had set it up originally, i sure wouldn't have partitioned it in one huge block. should i repartition the hard drive? what other options do i have? maybe someone else has had a similar experience...

much thanks for any help

 

So much of that system is being wasted on 9x...

 

wasted?

this is not my home computer
i maintain all the computers at my office, and this is the new computer for our designer. all his computer needs to do is run 3D modeling programs, which right now it cant because it has no virtual memory...

if you think 98 is bad, some of our computers are still on Win95, and up until a few months ago a few of our computers were Win 3.11

lately weve been upgrading everything to celerons running Win98

(my sig is outdated, maybe ill update it later)

 

Windows 98 will only use 128mb of the one gig of ram you have

Windows 98 was not designed to use more than that so the rest of the memory you have is just being wasted.

Also

Discrepancy Between Reported Capacity and Actual Capacity
Many customers are confused when their operating system reports, for example, that their new ST310240A 10.24-Gbyte hard drive is reporting only 9.85 Gbytes in usable capacity. Several factors may come into play when you see the reported capacity of a disc drive. Unfortunately there are two different number systems which are used to express units of storage capacity; binary, which says that a kilobyte is equal to 1024 bytes, and decimal, which says that a kilobyte is equal to 1000 bytes. The storage industry standard is to display capacity in decimal. Even though in binary you have more bytes, the decimal representation of a Gbyte shows greater capacity. In order to accurately understand the true capacity of your disc drive, you need to know which base unit of measure (binary or decimal) is being used to represent capacity. Another factor that can cause misrepresentation of the size of a disc drive is BIOS limitations. Many older BIOS are limited in the number of cylinders they can support.

Motivation for Proposed Prefixes for Binary Multiples
Once upon a time, computer professionals noticed that 1024 or 210 (binary) was very nearly equal to 1000 or 103 (decimal) and started using the prefix "kilo" to mean 1024. That worked well enough for a decade or two because everybody who talked kilobytes knew that the term implied 1024 bytes. But almost overnight a much more numerous "everybody" bought computers, and the trade computer professionals needed to talk to physicists and engineers and even to ordinary people, most of whom know that a kilometer is 1000 meters and a kilogram is 1000 grams.




Two Different Measurements Systems

Name Abbreviation Binary Power Binary Value
(represented in Decimal) Decimal Power Decimal
(Equivalent)

kilobyte Kbyte 210 1,024 103 1,000
megabyte Mbyte 220 1,048,576 106 1,000,000
gigabyte Gbyte 230 1,073,741,824 109 1,000,000,000
terabyte Tbyte

240
1,099,511,627,776 1012 1,000,000,000,000

Often when two or more people begin discussing storage capacity, some will refer to binary values and others will refer to decimal values without making distinction between the two. This has caused much confusion in the past. In an effort to dispatch this confusion, all major disc drive manufactures use decimal values when discussing storage capacity.

How Operating Systems Report Drive Capacity
Windows NT
From Windows Explorer, right click on a drive letter, then click on Properties. This shows capacities in bytes, Mbytes, and Gbytes.

Windows 95/98
From Windows Explorer, right click on a drive letter, then click on Properties. This shows bytes, Mbytes, and Gbytes.
DOS Prompt – CHKDSK shows bytes
DOS Prompt – FDISK shows Mbytes

DOS/Windows 3.x
CHKDSK shows bytes
FDISK shows Mbytes


this is why hardrive space differs from the one the manufacturers states and the one the operating system reports



Your hardrive sounds about right 120gigs down to 111 gigs for actual space reported by the OS

 

Wow!

I thought MY posts were long lectures!

Thanks for the explanations, Endo!

There are a LOT of people out there who have no idea why it is that when they PAY for an 80 Gig drive, their computer doesn't SAY they've got 80 Gigs of space.

 

I think everyone will agree with me that for graphic design work, the NT kernel is far superior, more stable, and efficient.


Why not upgrade to NT4 Workstation at least?

 

ok thanks for the uber-informative post, but...

i am familiar with the differences between 1024bytes and 1000bytes already.

if you noticed, my question is more about virtual memory. the Virtual Memory window is reporting that i have a negative amount of hard disk space (roughly -19000megs), and so refuses to allocate any virtual memory. the performance tab says it recommends that i enabled virtual memory, but the system refuses to because its reading the amount of free hard disk sapce incorrectly. (getting the negative value)

also, though i said Win 98, i AM actually using Win98 SE, if that makes a difference. are you sure i cant use more than 128megs of RAM under Win 98SE? i would think the company that built the computer would know that, but then again, i would also expect them to notice the fact that the computer has no virtual memory....

 

That should have been worded that Windows 98 will not make effective use over 128mb of ram.

Big time diminishing returns over 128mb.


It will use quite a bit more, but not efficiently.


If you are looking for memory effiency and usefulness, you are looking into the wrong line of OSes, and want to move to the NT kernel.

98 and 98se are the same code, with 98se having a couple new features.


IIRC, most 98se differences are available to 98 RTM in the form of Windows Updates and browser upgrades.


As for 98 not wanting to enable virtual memory, I'm not sure.

Maybe remove enough ram to be under the 512 range and see if it persists?

I know the 9x line has some sort of bug with ram over 512mb. That may have been limited to Windows ME, but I don't think so.

 

Well, here we go again

Having too much memory on a windows 98 machine can actually make it act funny lets take a look at this

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.”


http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=304943



The information in the link below applies to:
Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition
Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition
Microsoft Windows 98
Microsoft Windows 95


On computers with large amounts of RAM, the maximum cache size can be large enough that Vcache consumes all of the addresses in the system arena, leaving no virtual memory addresses available for other functions such as opening an MS-DOS prompt (creating a new virtual machine).

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;253912


I am not certain about this but having too much ram might be your problem

 

Totally agree... Memory issues, Virtual memory issues, and 9x OS disk space limtations would disappear with NT or 2K.

I think I remember seeing NT 4.0 full version CDs on Ebay for around $10 or $15 -- a real bargain considering the benefits you'd realize.

 

Hi!
Aside from the physical memory, if you absolutely cannot delete anything on your HDD to free up some space for a paging file, you could always add a slave drive and put a partition on it for virtual memory.

How to actually MOVE the partition I'll leave up to more adept posters.

 

OK. Understood, but the suggestions are clear and sound and aren't likely to change: Either pull out one or two sticks of RAM (depending on how many sticks your Gig is cut into) and try the VM settings again,
OR upgrade to an OS that will take some advantage of something like a Gig of Ram and a huge HD.

 

I have been using Windows 98SE for several years and I'm quite satisfied with it.

First, a small correction: Win98 uses max. 512 MB of RAM (not 128). With Cacheman (freeware) you can limit the usage of system RAM to this amount (beside many other settings).

My advice is, you should make the following partitions (use PartitionMagic): 2 GB primary partition for Win98SE, the remaining space use for extended partition with 2, 3 or 4 logical partitions for data, backups, etc.

For virtual memory (swap file) allocate from 512 to 768 MB (min. & max. should be the same!).
Or better still, to reduce the fragmentation make 1 GB logical partition right after the primary one and use it for swap file with the aforementioned values.

 

I quote me and definately would like to correct it.

I was under the impresion that windows 98 and me could only use 128mb.


Windows ME and 98 set aside 128 kilobytes of memory to store resources. That number does not change, regardless of your RAM quantity. Windows XP does not have this problem


Full article

http://www.komando.com/tips_show.asp?showID=5280


I now stand corrected the reference to the 128mb was for the resources windows uses

I also found out that indeed it is 512mb the max that windows will use properly.

beyond that and you should read the microsoft website pasted above.

Thank you very much for the correction


This is how we learn

 

excellent, you guys were right on the money

the computer had two 512 sticks of ram, so i removed one and poof, problem solved. i never would have figured this one out without outside help. much thanks!

i guess if we want to make use of the other 512 well have to upgrade his OS

 

very happy to hear that.

aint it Ironic though? too much memory was the culprit

 

Outstanding thread..learnt a lot there just watching. Thanks folks.

 

The Major Geeks geeks win again! There just ain't no other place for computing help quite like THIS place, so

DIS MUS' BE DA PLACE!

 

You can say that again!