memory problems

Johnnyrunon

I can reload my windows 98 and reformat my harddrive and it will run great for a couple of days then it starts slowing down and my resources level will fluxuate from 74 percent down to 45 or 55 percent. Does any one have any ideas? I have already emptied my temp files and internet cache but after reloading the system thats not really a factor.

EMT

Well, Win98 isn't too good for leaving on. It just kind of deteriorates... I doubt there's a simple way to fix it at all. Along with most people, I'd recommend just upgrading to a more stable OS like XP.

Ageek

If this repeatedly happens right after a warm boot, I would suspect viruses\trojans\worms or other malware. If it only happens when it has been that long between reboots, there ARE some apps for 98 which still do not release all the memory they used when they are closed down, and soem apps that run on 98 also do not necessarily get along with it too well (older games and soem older apps do not like the newer Java VM).

The only other things I will say are that with 98 there were a bunch of apps that never told you to reboot after installing and some Windows Updates never toldyou this either-- figure on this as a needed thing so the registry gets revised right and empty the trash can also. Do not cold boot or shut down the machineafter application or security or bug or driver updates, restart it.

I do not remember exactly how many hundreds of boxes Ihave had to clean with Norton WinDoctor after soemone shut his machine down instead of rebootign and the registry was not in sync with the files that were there because the new registry entries never got committed and the old oines never got pruned right.

Technically, what happens is this: the installers intended for 98 tend to write to dynamic registry keys and flag one dyn key to tell a routine that normally runs at boot to commit them after reboot. No reboot, registry no longer is in sync with what is there until you do reboot-- and if box crashes before a reboot happens you might never have those changes ever recorded right.

This was the first primitive way, along with the trash can\junk bin\wastbasket, to allow for an emergency recovery of a bad install. Box reboots, box writes changes and runs its registry autocheck. NOW, if registry autocheck is not turned off and runs and it sees a registry problem, it then rolls registry back-- or tries (98, by default, CABs 5 registries back adn can be forced to CAB 20 registry sets back). And, if user did nicely empty wastebasket BEFORE install but not after until AFTER the computer rebooted fine with new registry working, then all user had to do was recover all contents of wastebasket and then live with a bunch of extra but unused files until he\]she figured out what went wrong.

IF someone had told the users all this and all the users religiously had done all this(liker a habit thing), 3\4 of the system analysts would be out of work. Many would have become programmers and helped fix the problem of memory not being released by some apps some of the time. And, XP might have become needed in 2010 or 2020.

How do I justify this?? Folks tell me that 512 MB RAM is the limit of RAM and that 98 has problems with new HW. the first is kinda true-- but I have a P4 box that runs Linux, inside of that is a thing called Win4Lin 5, and inside that is atotally legal install of Win98SE-- the kicker is, linux happily sees and uses one GIGof RAM. Windows does not think it has more than 128 MB. Thus, Win98SE typically sits on desktop 6 of KDE 3.1.2 in Mandrake Linux 9.1.

This costs me less than XP costs. Oh, 98SE happily windows updated itself to DriectX 9,and uses it (not for gaming, so if you have a game box you need something like XP).

The other box is a Barton 2500+ box. There, I limited myself to 512 MB because this box is not an online box normally(SE does not have the "exactly 512 MB breaks me" problem if the drivers and other parts(especially the virtual machine) are updated, and this box was so updated. IT runs 98 SE, perfectly, with the latest Hyperion drivers (It is a KT400 chipset box.). It is the box I do most of my business stuff on.

So, I would say in your case, virus scan, and makesure you update the computer then reboot and clean your wastbasket out religiously also. Also, do not stick more icons on desktop than you need and do not try to make 98 SE eat more than 450-500 fonts (It tends to lose track of them and hang with more than 500 font files and starts slowing down with more than 475) and limit the eye candy.

I would, because of the snafus with memory management and memory size limits that were a major reason for SE coming out in the first place, say that for a modern box a gift of 98 SE would probably be very helpful if you have just original 98. Also, do not feed a 98 SE box 1 GIG of RAM without something to hide that fact from it, it will spoit, sputter, barf, BSOD, and lead you to reinstalling every 2-60 days depending on what else it gets fed. (The words may seem silly, the facts are quite real-- and loading an operating system with a sick(poorly coded or deliberately malicious) program be it a virus or bad code corrupts or makes "ill" or very poorly functional the operating system-- some early coders used GIGO to mean this, but essentially if you stick junk into a computer you normally get worse junk out.).

So, yes, 98 SE has limits too, but they are not quite as great as some would have you think.

The only other thing I can say, is that if you greatly suspect after many repeats of this find a friend who knows what zero packing is and do that to the HD before reinstalling Win 98 SE. But have the friend explain it. Essentially you use mfr utils for that brand and model or series of HD to literally totally overwrite everything in HD more thoroughly than formattign will do. THEN you run the diags that came with the zero-packing thing to make sure it is not needing to be replaced

There is a risk in doing this, but I have done this many more than 50 times to HDs that other techs said were dead and suddenly they worked fine for another year or so (one lasted 10 more, anyone need a 1.5 gig WD made in 1992 and still running free of bad sectors to hold 2 CDs worth of music on-- thought not, will keep it as a tester for IDE controller chips . Ditto the 4 gigger.).

20+ of those were also virused massively and had XP on them. XP reinstalled fine after the drives were zero-packed. When XP got relaoded, 15 of the owneres invested in Norton Antivurus. Of the 5 that did not(folks though other free AV was enough), after this happened AGAIN to all five within a month they also got Norton AV. I now sell Norton as standard equipment.

There are many possible reasons, but what I said should cover about 90% of the most likely ones that relate to software in any way. If you do not understand this ask about what you do not understand please.

John Danielson.