On 10 Apr 98 at 10:46, John G. Cakars wrote:

> Packard Bell POS P75, Win95a, 56RAM
>
> I didn't get a response from my posting the other day.  But I'm
> DEsparate.!!


> POST shows that I have 0057344k RAM Passed.  System Properties shows
> 56RAM.

  56*1024 = 57344.  Your POST and system properties are seeing the
same thing, but reporting it a little differently.

  56MB is a rather odd amount to see on a Pentium.  I'm guessing that
that might be 8MB soldered on the motherboard, and 2x16MB and 2x8MB
SIMMs installed.

> My computer is configured as a network server.

  I believe this is supposed to encourage applications to use RAM
rather than swap file space, so it could be relevant.  [Note that the
original Win95 had the actual settings for that item reversed; if you
don't have OSR2, you should make sure that the correct values have
been saved in the registry.

> Real Help, a Quarterdeck utility, shows that I have 23108K of
> 56764K Physical Memory available. It also shows that I have
> 1100096K of 1100096K of Virtual Memory available. This is when I
> finally get to Desktop.

  These are pretty reasonable.

> If I open Netscape, Physical Memory drops to 0.

  When I launch Netscape, free physical memory drops to nearly 0.
Swap file in use also goes up.
  After a minute or two, swapfile in use goes up a bit, and so does
free memory.  Navigating to a new page reduces free memory, but not
very much.

  I believe that what we're seeing is Win95's virtual memory
management, doing its job.

> I did not have any Memory problems until this week.  It like my computer
> suffered a gash and is bleeding dry.

  Do you see some other symptoms besides the report in Real Help?  If
not, I wouldn't say you have memory problems now.  Real Help is
offering you a peak "under the hood", and you're surprised at what
you see.  That's not quite enough to declare it "broken".

> So I need a clue as to what to do.  Are my SIMMS going bad?

  This is a purely software symptom; there's no reason to believe it
is caused by the hardware.

David G