where's my ram gone?

[shelley]

I recently upgraded my RAM from 128MB to 256MB but when I boot the m/c tells me I actually have 320MB. Not life threatening but I'm puzzled. Of more concern is that I can't say I've noticed a smidgin' of difference for doubling the RAM. I use the PC for graphics work with CorelDraw/Photopaint and several CAD apps.

 

[Linkmaster]

Hi shelley,
You should notice a little difference in loading time and other operations. I upgraded mine to 128 from 64 and didnt notice a lot at first but for some reason over time I did. Of course im no memory expert. The extra 64mb you are showing shouldnot be a problem.

 

[ratchet]

Shelly,

Could be to much in startup, check system resources right after startup, my machine is at 92%.
Go to Start/run, and type Msinfo32, followed by OK.
Go to Software Environment/Startup Programs.
Now click Edit/Select all, and then copy then paste and print with word or wordpad.
I have seen up to 30 + items.

You can check each one here,
http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_content.htm

Then go to start/ run type msconfig/ok
In system config. utility go to startup and uncheck the ones you
don't need, click ok and restart.
You will see selective startup, check don't show me this again.

 

[slipe]

Right click My Computer and select Properties. How much RAM does that show?

It isn’t that unusual to not notice much difference if you weren’t using over 128Mb RAM in the first place. My daughter worked professionally with AutoCad for a couple of years with only 128Mb RAM on her computer and never found it a problem. If you work with web size graphics files 128Mb is usually plenty as well. If you start messing with large graphics files you will definitely get a benefit from the extra RAM.

My film scanner puts out 30Mb files and I like to have my Photoshop history high. I have to be careful to shut everything down and not use brushes too large even with 512MbRAM. I could use more RAM but 512Mb is the MB limit.

Your computer must already be running pretty clean if it was doing well enough on 128Mb that adding another stick didn’t make any difference. It is never a bad idea to go through your msconfig/startup, but you don’t need to.

 

[shelley]

Hi everybody,

TW56 ~ I noticed no difference in load time either.

ratchet ~ picked up on your link and downloaded one of the startup management programmes. It found three files which no longer existed. I'm using Win95, by the way (I should have said, sorry). On startup I have 87% system resources, 90% user resources and 87 GDI. I don't think these made much difference and I had only a dozen files running anyway, all useful.

slipe ~ it shows 320MB. There are three memory slots and I guess the extra slot holds the extra 64MB, though I don't know what it's doing. It's not a slot I'm supposed to make use of. The reason for the upgrade was because Autocad takes an absolute lifetime to open a new file (go and get a cup of coffee type thing) and just as long for a first save or 'save as'. I thought this was a sign of a lack of resources but it's clearly not.

 

[Linkmaster]

Hi shelly,
How full is your hard drive?

 

[Linkmaster]

Hi Shelley,
Also I noticed an improvement when I began using Cacheman:
www.outertech.com. For me it works great

 

[shelley]

I'm using only 3.28GB out of 7.80GB.

 

[Linkmaster]

Hi shelley,
Just a thought do you have antivirus running? And what kind?

 

[shelley]

It's AVG 6.0, a freebie from Grisoft.com. I know this gets in the way when vidcapping and I disable it for that. I've installed it *after* installing the extra RAM.

 

[Linkmaster]

Does it have a setting for scaning files:
When run or opened and when created or downloaded?

 

[slipe]

It sounds like you have 64Mb RAM built into the MB.

Right click My Computer>Properties>Performance>File System and make sure your computer is set as a Network Server and not a desktop. This increases the name and path cache to something more appropriate for your RAM. Also set your read ahead to max.

I have no idea why you are having problems accessing and saving your AutoCad files. It obviously has nothing to do with RAM or resources.

Do you defrag your computer regularly? If not go Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools and run ScanDisk and then the Disk Defragmenter. Do the defrag when you are going to leave the computer for lunch or something as it takes a while if you don’t regularly defrag.

My daughter says that AutoCad files save and open much faster if you purge them before you archive them. She says the purge of all the excess commands can prune a file from 5Mb to 1Mb with no loss in the actual information on the file. She says to audit any file that is balky in any way as the audit repairs a lot of stuff that can slow things down. She also says that too much X referencing can slow things as well. She also says you already know all of this if you use AutoCad.

If you have a Via chipset in your MB, download the latest 4 in 1 drivers from Via.

If none of this helps download freeware version of Sandra and have it run tests on your system, with particular attention to the buses and hard drive. Sandra gives suggestions about what to do to fix bottlenecks: http://www.zdnet.com/downloads/stories/info/0,10615,35399,00.html

Cacheman will set the name and path cache to something higher than the server setting in Windows which some people claim improves performance. Everything else that Cacheman does is counterproductive in Win98 or higher. You don’t want it putting in artificial RAM loads to “free” memory and you certainly don’t want it messing with your vcache. If you load Cacheman just use it to increase the name and path cache and nothing else. I use a registry tweak to increase my name and path cache and don’t really see any improvement over the server setting.

 

[shelley]

Downloaded the Sandra programme but then found this in the FAQ's ~

Q: Does Sandra run on Windows 9X/Me/NT/200X?
A: This is the current status:

Windows 98/Me (i.e. WDM kernel): Yes.
Windows NT4 & 200X (i.e. NT kernel): Yes.
Windows 95 (i.e. legacy kernel): No.
Windows NT3 (i.e. NT3 kernel): No.

I don't know why they didn't say this at the download site. I presumably come under the Windows 95 legacy category. Caused me a few problems too before I uninstalled. Is there any similar programmes out there for us Windows 95 dinosaurs?

Anyway, tested the machine at www.pcpitstop.com and got a score of 161. Prior to the upgrade this was down somewhere at 85. Still not a high score compared to some of the guys posting in the Tips & Tricks section but this machine is no spring chicken.

Defragging? It's a low, low figure and Windows doesn't recommend doing it (but that doesn't mean...etc).

For the sake of a benchmark comparison, boot up takes 65 seconds to bring up the deskstop and a further 40 seconds to being run ready.

 

[shelley]

Forgot about the AutoCad side of this.

I still don't follow the logic of why the files should be so slow opening/saving the first time and quick thereafter (until the next session that is).

I've only started using AutoCad due to a client who can't use it himself and can't get off the legacy treadmill, so any help here is useful.

I'll look into file purging.