A couple of people beat you to the punch on this one.  It doesn't mess up my
mind at all, I just wanted to understand why you could have RAM up the
ying-yang and run out of system resources.  That has never happened to me,
it was just a point of interest, but thanks.

Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] Adding RAM


At 03:39 PM 5/26/2001 -0700, you wrote:
>What confuses me is that if, as others have said, system resources is a set
>amount of RAM specifically for that, then the percentage of resources it
>takes up should go down as the amount of RAM goes up.


You're thinking about "extended" memory, which is what the RAM you can plug
into the motherboard is. System resources refers to the use of
"conventional" memory, which is hard soldered to the motherboard and is
never more than 1024k under Win9x because of the necessity of retaining
reverse compatibility with legacy operating systems such as DOS. You can
think of it as the first meg of memory if you want to.

The point is that the conventional memory area is limited to 1024k no
matter how much extended memory ("RAM") you plug in. And since the
so-called "system resouces" only use (or reside in) conventional memory,
you can add RAM until you break your pocketbook and it still will not
increase the space available to "system resources". In reality, system
resources only have part of conventional memory available to them, but
that's another story.

If this messes your mind up too much, switch to NT or 2000- these OS's
treat all of the memory in a machine as one chunk and the limitations
imposed by DOS/Win9x and "system resources" go away entirely.

        The NOSPIN Group provides a monthly newsletter with great
       tips, information and ideas: NOSPIN-L, The NOSPIN Magazine
           Visit our web site to signup: http://freepctech.com