memory usuage/loss with W98se

R

Researcher

Geek Trainee
I have a K6-2+ 550 with 384mb ram and a 40 gig HD and W98SE. I never had this supposedly common memory problem up until lately. I am not a gamer and this system has served me well until now. Every operation, mine or a cookie or whatever uses a bit of memory but when the operation is over the bit of memory is not freed up again. I use AMS FastDefrag software to clean out the garbage and get the memory back, but I have to do this quite often. I have cleaned out all the cookies and I am in a process of removing all my old researched info to lighten the memory burden. I have heard this problem is common and really can't be solved before XP. Anyone with experience with this or any comments.
(I am planning on a new 939 pin Athlon system and this one will be a back-up)
 
The Windows 9x family has a known memory leak. There is a fix for it, but it's only useful to those with =>128mb. Since you obviously qualify, you'll need to edit your C:\windows\system.ini file. In the [386enh] section of the system.ini, add:
Code: 
ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1
 
Anti-Trend said:
The Windows 9x family has a known memory leak. There is a fix for it, but it's only useful to those with =>128mb. Since you obviously qualify, you'll need to edit your C:\windows\system.ini file. In the [386enh] section of the system.ini, add:
Code: 
ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1
Click to expand...

Thanks for the quick reply and suggestion. I already had the line where you say but it ended in 0, so I changed the 0 to 1. Now I will try it this way and see if that fixes it. (Do you suppose an installation of a software program might have changed it to a 0, since the line was already there.)
 
Researcher said:
Thanks for the quick reply and suggestion. I already had the line where you say but it ended in 0, so I changed the 0 to 1. Now I will try it this way and see if that fixes it. (Do you suppose an installation of a software program might have changed it to a 0, since the line was already there.)
Click to expand...
That's possible. Or, if you bought your PC from an OEM such as Dell or HP it could have been placed there by them. In any case, the change won't take effect until after you reboot.

-AT
 
Anti-Trend said:
That's possible. Or, if you bought your PC from an OEM such as Dell or HP it could have been placed there by them. In any case, the change won't take effect until after you reboot.

-AT
Click to expand...
I built this computer myself using an Epox MB. Maybe the W98SE update disk added the line of code ending in a 0? I researched this a bit further elsewhere myself and found that a blank line should follow the line of code, it didn't have a blank line so I added one. I realized I needed to reboot so I did that also. This all, so far, doesn't seem to have changed my memory leak problem.
I also checked the BIOS to see if the memory timing settings, the CL setting, the pagemode setting etc were OK. I am aware of some of this, but I know that I am not a computer expert. You need to be able to run faster every day to keep up with computer technology and I am slowing down. I am guessing that this line of code which directs the RAM memory to be used before the the virtual memory (part of the hard drive) is not part of my original leak problem. (I think I have a biological memory leak problem also.) Thanks for the comments so far.
 
Well, really the fix I mentioned isn't so much that as a workaround which forces Win9x to flush its cache a lot, resulting in a lot more free RAM. If that didn't fix your problem, it's possible that your vcache settings are out of wack. Could you post the [vcache] and [386Enh] sections from your system.ini? Since you already had some non-stock modifications in that file, I'd like to see it myself.

Thanks,
-AT
 
Anti-Trend said:
Well, really the fix I mentioned isn't so much that as a workaround which forces Win9x to flush its cache a lot, resulting in a lot more free RAM. If that didn't fix your problem, it's possible that your vcache settings are out of wack. Could you post the [vcache] and [386Enh] sections from your system.ini? Since you already had some non-stock modifications in that file, I'd like to see it myself.

Thanks,
-AT
Click to expand...

This is interesting, let me see if I can find my way to post it as you suggest. I have never done this.

[vcache]

[386Enh]
device=
ebios=*ebios
woafont=dosapp.fon
mouse=*vmouse, msmouse.vxd
device=*dynapage
device=*vcd
device=*vpd
device=*int13
EMMExclude=EMMExclude=C000-CFFF,C000-CFFF,C000-CFFF,C000-CFFF,C000-CFFF, C000-CFFF
ComBoostTime=2
keyboard=*vkd
ConservativeSwapFileUsage=1

PagingDrive=C:
MinPagingFileSize=983040
MaxPagingFileSize=2359296

A-T, it looks like it wasn't that hard to do. That is all there was for [vcache]

Researcher
 
Researcher said:
This is interesting, let me see if I can find my way to post it as you suggest. I have never done this.

[vcache]

[386Enh]
device=
ebios=*ebios
woafont=dosapp.fon
mouse=*vmouse, msmouse.vxd
device=*dynapage
device=*vcd
device=*vpd
device=*int13
EMMExclude=EMMExclude=C000-CFFF,C000-CFFF,C000-CFFF,C000-CFFF,C000-CFFF, C000-CFFF
ComBoostTime=2
keyboard=*vkd
ConservativeSwapFileUsage=1

PagingDrive=C:
MinPagingFileSize=983040
MaxPagingFileSize=2359296

A-T, it looks like it wasn't that hard to do. That is all there was for [vcache]

Researcher
Click to expand...

A-T
I figured I would edit my original reply and that turns out to be a bit more difficult to do than post the 386Enh file, lets see if it qualifies to be submitted now.
 
Hi Yuchao719, I wondered about that myself, but it wasn't mentioned in the MS KnowledgeBase article I found so I tried something else for now. Anti-Trend gave me a big hint by wanting me to post my [vcache] from the system.ini file. [vcache] is all there was so I Googled [vcache] parameters and probably found my answer. I am in Pennsylvania so there is a big time differece and I got curious enough not to wait. When A-T is back online I will see if he agrees with what I found. It is working better. Thanks for the reply. -- Researcher

Entering [vcache] parameters in the Google search box took me to http://hacks.oreilly.com/pub/h/2276 among other results. This PC Hack based on a MS Knowledge base article253912 explains about the [vcache] and recommends settings. I added the suggested lines and now it looks like this:

[vcache]
MinFileCache=32000
MaxFileCache=40000

I also changed the [vcache] location to after the [386Enh] section as suggested.
The memory loss problem seems to be corrected, so A-T does this look like what you were figuring on doing? Any more tweaks?
Thanks a lot so far, you gave me the hint when others told me it couldn't be fixed. ... Researcher
 
Yuchao719 said:
Just wondering - what happens if you change

ConservativeSwapfileUsage= some # other than 0 or 1?
Click to expand...
It's binary. 0 and 1 are the only options, i.e. 0=off and 1=on.
 
Researcher said:
...so A-T does this look like what you were figuring on doing? Any more tweaks?
Thanks a lot so far, you gave me the hint when others told me it couldn't be fixed. ... Researcher
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's pretty much what I was going to have you do. You can check out this thread for more info. The suggestions I gave to the fellow in the thread I just referenced won't apply directly to you though, since he actually had a gig of RAM.

-AT
 
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