Computer Learning

[lostcowboy]

Hi Scrooge, Lets do some checking.
1.Right click on control panel and click on properties. On the general tab it will tell you how much memory Windows thinks you have. Is it correct? If not you have a memory problem. While here click on the Device manager tab, click on the + by system devices. On my mother board I have VIA Tech chips. What ever type you have go to there web site and update your drivers! It made a big different on how well my new hard drive ran. Windows ME thought it should run in PIO mode 4, after the new drivers my hard drive runs at Ultra-DMA mode 1, if I had a newer motherboard I could get mode 5 out of the hard drive.

2. I am looking at the manual that came with my motherboard when I built my computer. On my motherboard if you have simm's installed, the dimm slot next to the simm's must be empty.

3. You have to go into bios and tell it what you have now. I have award bios, and I go into the chipset features setup to do that. While in Bios make sure that your l1 and l2 cache's are on.

4. On some motherboards you can select what speed the motherboard runs at. If I remember correctly your cpu uses 64 MHZ, your DIMM's should be able to run at that speed, some of the older SIMM's could not. If it comes to that pull the simm's, and go for the higher speed. If you change the speed be sure to change the clock multiplier, DO NOT OVERCLOCK YOUR CPU, unless you are ready to buy a new one.

Last but not least Windows 95 through ME are pig's when it comes to memory, they hog as much of it as they can and force your programs to use the swap file. The swap file is about 10 times slower than ram, as it is on your hard drive.

There is a program that will put windows on a diet, it is called Cacheman. I have used it for about two years now. It used to be Freeware. It now cost $10, unless you can't afford $10 then its free.
You can read about it here.
http://www.outertech.com/product.php?product=3&PHPSESSID=e02448c4ebdda8fc9becf57686d5d347

I am very impressed with Cacheman