Low system memory, dunno why

Hello all, first post, need some help...

I just build my upgrade box: Asus A7N8X-LA (HP licensed version) mobo, Athlon 2800+ cpu, 256mb PC2700 DDR400 Transcend RAM (running at 333mhz I believe, which matches CPU... Crappy BIOS has no options for changing any memory/cpu timings). I checked with Asus website to verify compatibility - Actually, the original RAM I got was some pcclub no-name stuff that locked up immediately and consistently in XP. I returned it and got the Asus-verified one, and it seems to work great - system is stable, but SLOW!

What I mean is: Software installs are ridiculously slow. WMP10 upgrade took at least 10 minutes. Basic prog installs are slow and require full system attention - I can't do anything else while anything installs. Even clicking the start menu takes a good 15 seconds to bring up and draw while a prog is installing.

That's the most noticable problem, but I can tell sys performance is lacking otherwise. Forget multitasking... My old 500mhz could run circles around this thing. Opening simple programs and windows takes waaay longer than it should. I checked my System Info prog, it tells me the following:

Total Physical Memory: 256.00 MB
Available Physical Memory: 23.45 MB
Total Virtual Memory: 658.00 MB
Available Virtual Memory: 210.83 MB
Page File Space: 466.64 MB

Wow. That's some low physical memory. At the time of this query, the only apps running are my browser (IE variant), AIM, and WinAmp5. This system should be able to handle those apps with ease - my old 500mhz/128mb system did better than this!

Any words of wisdom? Its a fresh XP install, with the addition of my applications. No killer background apps running that I can see... And besides, this has been this slow since the XP install - the first progs I installed were slow too. Have all the mobo certified drivers, including chipset and video (they're on HP's site for the a320n pavilion, the PC this mobo came out of).

Ideas? Thanks!!

Jesse

You have no available RAM, so everything is taking so long because you have to wait for virtual memory to be written and accessed on the hard drive - the hard drive is exponentially slower than RAM. You just need more RAM... 256 on XP isn't enough to multi-task effectively. 512 would be good for most common uses, but still not great for gaming these days.

Tweak your service settings by following the guide on blackviper's site - http://www.blackviper.com/

That will free a lot of resources which are being used by system processes in XP. Also, if you have anything running in the taskbar tray by the clock at the bottom right, close it unless it is firewall or antivirus (remove winzip quickpick quicktime or anything like that). You should also not have anything running at start up.

I am betting that your last system was not on XP if it performed better than this system.

Heya, thanks for the reply!

Yeah, I know I have no available physical RAM and that's the problem. I didn't know that XP was such a hog though... You're right - my last OS was win2k, and it didn't have problems at all with a system lacking considerably more. Like I said in my original post, nothing major running in the background. I'm QUITE familiar with keeping a streamlined system, my startup is clean as a whistle, except for my firewall and download manager. I could run aaaall this and way more on my 500mhz/128mb/win2k box with ease.

I know 256mb isn't a lot these days, but I guess it still seems like it to me, considering I hadn't yet broken the GHz barrier It just seems funny because I'm pretty much a power user - multitasking is a necessity for my system. I assumed that this upgrade would make it phenomenal - alas!

Thanks for the link, I'll definately tweak this thing until I can upgrade. It just seems inrcredible that a fresh XP install can eat up 256mb immediately. I would have sworn it was a problem, like memory timing being off and just being inefficient with its handling or something...

Interestingly: I got Counterstrike installed and managed to get into a server without being timed out (lol), and I had the highest latency in the server (250, dear lord! My win2k box was under 20 usually!), but I was still #1 in the server with 16 kills!! w00t!

Something appears to be eating up RAM abnormally to me... 256 shouldn't be that shallow with just a couple apps running. Some of the old PC's at work have have 256 and they can run mutiple office applications no problem, multitask fairly well in their environment, and they are running XP.

What is winamp doing? It can take up a lot of memory at times.

Open task manager and go to the processes tab, organize the entries by mem usage, and let me know what the top 5 or so items are.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Many of the PCs I support at work are XPs, and only the newest would have more than 256 I think. Yeah, I've already checked out the running processes too, here's the breakdown (at the moment):

MYIE (27.1mb)
winamp (11.9mb)
smc.exe (10.2mb)
explorer.exe (9.2mb)
svchost.exe (6.9mb)
DAP (download mgr) (4mb)

Everthing else is 1mb or less. I know the MYIE looks like a hog (Tabbed IE variant, this one is more bloated than the old version I used, but not incredibly so), but you have to understand the system acts like this with or without MYIE/Winamp/whatever open.

I just created a new page file on my secondary storage HDD, with a gig limit, it'll help temporarily... This memory handling is still crazy though.

EDIT: I was just thinking about this mobo... It's this goofy AN78X-LA HP variant which has the nForce2 chipset. Does this mean its dual channel, and if so, is that related? Ehh my knowledge of recent mobo/memory compatibility is lacking... The guide on this forum is awesome though, btw!!

Update:

Strange thing happened today. I'm sitting at home and I get a phone call. It's a friend of mine, he says he has an extra stick of PC2700 333MHz DDR RAM that he doesn't need anymore. He just upgraded to a GB of RAM using 2x512 chips, so with only 2 slots he doesn't need his 256. I installed the RAM in my PC and its working great, now I have around 200mb free.

So I guess that's all it was. I just didn't know the system would be such a hog!! Thanks for the tips.

sprocket87 said:

Update:

Strange thing happened today. I'm sitting at home and I get a phone call. It's a friend of mine, he says he has an extra stick of PC2700 333MHz DDR RAM that he doesn't need anymore. He just upgraded to a GB of RAM using 2x512 chips, so with only 2 slots he doesn't need his 256. I installed the RAM in my PC and its working great, now I have around 200mb free.

So I guess that's all it was. I just didn't know the system would be such a hog!! Thanks for the tips.

Click to expand...

Well Windows XP tends to do that to PCs Glad you got it working! I remember when I was using 1x256MB of DDR400.... my games ran like crap and it was sooo slow. Getting 512 made a big difference.

sprocket87 said:

Update:

Strange thing happened today. I'm sitting at home and I get a phone call. It's a friend of mine, he says he has an extra stick of PC2700 333MHz DDR RAM that he doesn't need anymore. He just upgraded to a GB of RAM using 2x512 chips, so with only 2 slots he doesn't need his 256. I installed the RAM in my PC and its working great, now I have around 200mb free.

So I guess that's all it was. I just didn't know the system would be such a hog!! Thanks for the tips.

Click to expand...

I should have told you to turn off the theme service... Running XP with a w2k look can make it a lot snappier too.

Glad your problem is straightened though anyways, sounds like thats a buddy you should keep around. Wish my friends gave me computer parts... but hell, atleast they're fun to drink with.

Haha, indeed. Fortunately this is a friend I can both drink with and bum PC parts from!

Actually he's my roommate-to-be, and he doesn't know a whole lot about PCs. He just spends money to make them go faster, and I don't have money, so it worked out this time

Thanks again all, I'll definately stick around here for future advice.

I.M.O.G. said:

I should have told you to turn off the theme service... Running XP with a w2k look can make it a lot snappier too.

Glad your problem is straightened though anyways, sounds like thats a buddy you should keep around. Wish my friends gave me computer parts, but hell, atleast they're fun to drink with.

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