Insufficient memory?

I have this 486 laptop that's just a gem. It's a 486-SL/25 with 4MB RAM and it runs Windows 95 beautifully, but ever since I upgraded to OSR 2.1, it says there's not enough memory to initialize windows. There's 4MB on this rig, but the older 95 loaded beautifully. Does anybody have any ideas for getting my laptop to work? I know it can be done! I just bought ~$75 worth of stuff for it so getting it running is pretty important. Plus, I love this laptop.

find some more memory? I have some old simms laying around here somewhere, some 4MB and some 8's and even a couple 16's i think.

You can try stripping Windows to a minimum, but you are really pushing things with only 4 megs of RAM. Any idea what kind of memory that laptop uses, and what its maximum memory is? You may be able to pick up some extra RAM for about $50 US dollars, and then you won't have any more memory problems.

Of course, without knowing the specs or manufacturer of that laptop, I can't give much better help than that.

It's an Altima Traveler subnotebook, but it's made by Twinhead, and they call it the twinhead Subnote. Compudyne also made their version. There's RAM hardwired to it, but you can expand it. However, the RAM is VERY hard to get a hold of. There's this really neat removable section right near the keyboard inside the laptop (exposed when you flip the screen open) where expansions can be added. I already have a modem installed (19200 baud, lol), but there's two plugs that you can pop RAM into. It's not like regular RAM. If anybody finds RAM, even if its just a place to buy it, I will give a high reward!!

Right now, there's no sound hardware, so that can be stripped from windows wherever possible. But I was able to run the very first version with no stripping and no problems at all - started right up and ran pretty dang strong. Version B couldn't be _that_ much heavier on resources, could it?

You can try Win98 lite.. works with win95.. the idea behind it is that it reduces the amount of stuff that windows runs, to get a faster, more leaner OS. This may cut back on the memory needed.

Take it into a computer shop, and ask them if it takes regular SODIMM ram.. most laptops take that, but IDK about 486 laptops.

Also, if you are not attached to windows, almost any linux or unix distro will work on a 486. Plus, there are no memory needs for it... afaik, you can run it with 16k of RAM, and a really big swap partition.

As long as you have swap, it'll just use that. (it'll be painfully slow, but it's a 486 to begin with).

I thought about using linux, and I am a linux user, but I want a graphical OS on my 486 and X just plain wouldn't run with 4MB.

Update!

I was screwing around with stuff, and eventually removed NetBEUI and IPX/SPX that did the trick! It booted in full mode!! But, it said it was configuring some stuff right from the start, and when I restarted, it couldn't load again. This shows how close I am!! Now it struggles loading VFBACKUP. What the heck is that anyway?? Whatever it is, I probably don't need it. Orange never needs backups!! But it's not a file on my computer and its not in any of my ini files. What is it?? I think if I stop loading that, it'll start!

http://www.litepc.com/
This should reduce what you have to load. They have Windows 98 booting off of a 13megabyte flash harddrive. Something tells me an install like that doesn't need a whole lot of ram.

What are you using it for? just browsing or what?

Yikes! You weren't kidding when you said that memory is hard to find for that laptop. How much hard drive space do you have left? Is there enough for it to use a little virtual memory to make up for the lack of physical memory?

Cowboy Shane said:

Yikes! You weren't kidding when you said that memory is hard to find for that laptop. How much hard drive space do you have left? Is there enough for it to use a little virtual memory to make up for the lack of physical memory?

Click to expand...

Right now I have a 120MB hard drive installed on it. Its a descent Toshiba hdd. However, I have a 1.4GB one being shipped to my door pretty soon. It should be here be the weekend. Increasing the swap might help. That's the same thing as virtual memory only put into different terms right? Cause I can shange that. If I let windows automatically set my virtual memory settings (how it's set now), do you think it would actually keep itself from loading? I have a good ~35MB of free space leftover from the install.

I have been buying a lot of goodies for this laptop! I won a 16MB PCMCIA RAM card, but I use my PCMCIA slot almost every time I use it, and since stuff would be loaded onto the card's RAM, I'm not sure if I'll be able to just remove it and be ok. However, I do know that Windows loads the PCMCIA support halfway during its startup, so this might be an option if that works out. I also have a 2.0 USB PCMCIA card I just ordered, a PS/2 Y-splitter cable for keyboard and mouse use, and an original copy of Myst!! My goal for this laptop is to get Myst running on it. I can get USB sound and a self-powered USB CD ROM. That would be ..... SO cool.

I'm gonna mess with the virtual memory and look at that link. I know for sure that win98 won't run on it as it crawls on my uberly-cool DX4/120. Man, that comp has it all - a pretty blue heatsink w/ arctic silver, mach 32 powered ati graphics wonder card, winfast 32 bit IDE, 1.6GB ... it's sweet. I call it the CAN cause it's cool and naked (I run it without any casing).

mbentley said:

here is all i found so far:
http://www.butterflymedia.com/ShowModelSpec.asp?GroupID=850&ModelNo=SubNote+4SX/4DX

http://www.psism.com/twinhead.htm

there really isn't much info about that laptop... i am just curious what the memory looks like...

i know i had a 486 that was an ibm thinkpad that took these things that look like pcmcia cards... still have an 8mb one sitting around... doubt it's the same thing though...

Click to expand...

hey, those are some very nice links! If I'm able to order anything, a little "thank you" might be right up your alley!

Update!

I'm playin around with the virtual memory, and so far so good! I am able to boot up win95b in full mode, but its a little finicky so far, so let's see how it runs!

mbentley said:

here is all i found so far:
http://www.butterflymedia.com/ShowModelSpec.asp?GroupID=850&ModelNo=SubNote+4SX/4DX

http://www.psism.com/twinhead.htm

there really isn't much info about that laptop... i am just curious what the memory looks like...

i know i had a 486 that was an ibm thinkpad that took these things that look like pcmcia cards... still have an 8mb one sitting around... doubt it's the same thing though...

Click to expand...

Well guess what???? I ordered a 4MB memory module from Butterfly Media!!! And it was only thirty bucks!! That's sooo cool, you have PM!!

is it 30 or 72 pin SIMM modules?


J.

4mb for $30.. I remember those days.. now you can get 128mb or more for that price