>From: Russ Poffenberger <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] Memory upgrade
>Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 09:28:12 -0700
>
>Laurence Mckenna <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > > >
> > >
> > > The other issue here is the chipset your motherboard is equipped
> > > with.  If you have a VX
> > > chipset, you are effectively limited to 64 MB of RAM.  There
> > > Paul A. Shippert           Library/Media Specialist
> >
> > My mobo has a i430vx chipset& according to the manual
> > "uses four 72pin EDO/Page mode SIIMMmodules autobanking in multiple
> > configuration up  to128 MB......."
>
>The issue isn't whether you can add it or not, but whether the mobo/chipset
>can
>make effective use of it.
>
>The VX chipset only has enough L2 cache tag ram to cache 64M of memory. Any
>memory added above that is not cached, so memory accesses above 64M will
>suffer
>a performance hit.
>
>I have also heard (but not confirmed) that Windows will use memory starting
>at
>the top, so once you go above 64M, windows slows down considerably.
>
>
>--
>Russ Poffenberger               Engineering Specialist
>Schlumberger Technologies ATE   DOMAIN: [log in to unmask]


Actually, I would like to confirm this issue.  I haven't tested this on
Windows 98, but I have on Windows 95.  I used a resource monitor (it was
about 6 months ago, and I can't remember which one now) that looked
specifically at the memory usage.  I had a machine with 96MB of RAM
installed, and Windows 95 reported all 96MB in the system properties.  So, I
started opening up web pages and watching the system monitor during each
instance.  As soon as I hit 60MB of RAM (I had the memory cache in my
browser set to 96MB) I started getting memory/resources low warnings from
Windows.  As soon as I hit 64MB, the system started freezing and I had to
start shutting things down, eventually having to reboot the system entirely.

Next I did the same thing by opening a text file I had created to be exactly
1024K bytes.  I created 64 copies and started opening them one by one.  At
about the 55th file I started getting memory/resource warnings again.  When
I hit the 64th file, I had to again start closing files to get windows to
respond properly.

I then removed 32MB of RAM to make a system with 64MB.  The system ran,
based on various speed test, an average of 20% faster.  Keep in mind, this
is all with Windows 95B OSR 2.1.  To me, this meant that Windows 95 can only
use up to 64MB of RAM, and above that actually detracts from the efficiency
of the system.  I would be real interested to hear if anyone else has run
any tests like these, and what their results were.

Kyle

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