Need help on Windows ME

[bbmark]

I have AMD 1GHz (not overclock), 384M RAM, ATI Rage 128GL 32M video card, 20Gb Maxtor ATA100 hard drive, Gigabyte 7ZXR VIA KT133 motherboard. My system resources are low, around 50% with two small applications running, it takes time to refresh the screen. I tried with only 128M RAM, there was no different in the system resources. Does it means I do not need the other 256Mb RAM ? Can anyone help me to improve the system resources and performace ?

[kaz101]

ME doesn't usually start to spit chips (not literally ;) ) until you're up around 512 ram so you should be ok with what you've got.

assuming you haven't stacked up your 20g h/drive ;) and that ME is detecting the full 384ram (and that it's compatible) you've run scandisk and defrag to iron out any wee hiccups you could try the following...

do a normal boot, don't load/launch anything just take note of your Resource Meter settings.

Now launch System Configuration Utility (msconfig) and have a peek at your startup tab. Knock off the ones you really don't need loading, then reboot.

Make sure you only have the bare min running (hit ctrl+alt+del post back with what's running if you'd like to) now knock off the two small programs (???) if you didn't at msconfig.

Load Resource Meter, take note of the settings, add the 2 programs (???) one by one checking your resources again. Compare them to the original settings you had before tweaking... any clues?

You might to try grabbing AnalogX MaxMem from HERE (http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/system/maxmem.htm) (freeware) and take it for a spin to see if it'll help you identify where the problem may be... do the the same for MaxMem that you did with resource meter, play with the settings and see what happens.

Another thing worth trying is a clean boot, the difference should be noticable when it comes to a comparison of stats to the original ones you first took, then as you add them back you can watch to see what's sucking up your resources.

Watch how much space you have allocated for System Restore, you may need to knock this back.
you could also try tweaking your Virtual Memory settings... rule of thumb is around 2 - 2.5 x the ram for both min and max, you can also choose to have no VM if you want but either way tweak this with care and if any problems arise then come straight back and restore to orig settings.

forgot to say hello :rolleyes: and welcome :)

[ 28 March 2001: Message edited by: kaz101 ]

[ 29 March 2001: Message edited by: kaz101 ]

[bbmark]

Thank you. I installed Maxmem, I opened as many as Explorer to use all the system resources. It went down to 1%, then I checked with Maxmem free memory. There was 181M free (I have 384M in my PC). How come ME did not use the 181M free memory and it shown a such low system resources ? How can I make ME to use the free memory and increase the system resources ? I tried with 512M RAM, there was no different, just more free memory left.
This morning, I was running two applications, suddenly, the system resources moved from 61% down to 1% (the programs were just open, nothing loading at that time), then warning from ME. Then it jumped back to 61% and system resources moving up and down between 61% and 45%. I have no idea at all. Can you help me, please ?

[kaz101]

Hi
excuse the novel... it's a character trait of mine ;)

RAM and your System Resources aren't the same thing... which ultimately means that increasing RAM doesn't increase your System Resources (I think windows NT is the only one that differs in this area) as the amount of RAM has no impact (as such) on your System Resources as it's two categories (User & GDI) have their own fixed memory space.

RAM and System Resources are often confused and of course in their own way are quite confusing as on the surface they appear to do similar jobs and 'low' of both (RAM and Resources) causes the same problems ie system crash, freezing etc but lets quickly (and I hope briefly) pull them apart...


RAM (main memory) is used by every program/file/pic you launch/execute as it is transfered from the hard drive to your 'main memory' for easy and quick access. The amount of RAM will determine how many programs you can have up and running at one time and how much of them (the programs) are available to use. If you have little RAM installed then it'll limit the amount of information for easy/quick recall. Increasing RAM will allow you to 'store' more information for quick access... by the sound of it you have enough RAM :)

now let's pull apart your System Resources... remember it's a set area of memory that's soley used by Windows (being your operating system) and it comprises of
User Resources is USER.EXE being the input manager which 'basically' handles the information like dll files a prog uses, dialogs, keyboard/mouse input, drivers etc. Throw open some 'large' programs and you'll notice it drop suddenly.
GDI(Graphic Display Interface) Resources is GDI.EXE and is the graphic display manager 'basically' anything to do with what is 'written' your screen like icons, fonts, colours etc. If you throw open a heap of folders/windows (not programs) then you'll notice your GDI drops rapidly

throw open Resource Meter you'll see the 3 sections
System Resource at the top
then User Resource
and finally GDI Resouces
both USER and GDI have there own individual areas of memory allocated and what Resource Meter shows you is the % of free space each has left in their own memory heap. The top one being System Resource will always give you the lesser of the two % so if GDI was at 35% and USER at 78% then System Resouces would show at the lesser of 35%

If either of these (User & GDI) gets to below 10% you're heading for trouble as Windows will start to become unstable and you can soon end up hooked in a crash, the only way to get round this is to reboot your comp and start again... similar to if you've run out of free RAM although MaxMem does help manage this


Your system (and everyone elses) can and will suffer from resource and/or memory leaks at some stage, this is when a program has 'borrowed' memory and/or resources to run but can't or won't give them back when it's finished using them. Yes windows is memory hog but more often than not you'll find it's a software/program/application that is actually the culprit. Yes some tweaks can be done to help manage this but you'll need to keep a close eye on your Resource Meter to see whether you're lossing User or GDI resources and which programs do this. Figuring this out is quite easy as you take a resource meter reading launch a single program use it for little while, shut it down and check the resource meter again... it should have dropped the resources it's used, or close enough to it.

I'll shut up now ;) but I hope this helps just remember that the % of free resources is NOT how much (or little) RAM you have available... it's a reflection of how much free memory you have left available in the system GDI and User heaps. So even though your System Resources are extremely low you'll quite often find (when you have the amount of RAM that you do) that you still have ample if not a heap of free RAM still available.