Can WinME take 1 GB of memory???

The reason that I am asking this is that I just lost my whole hard drive (good thing I had a backup) when trying to install two 512mb sticks of Samsung PC2700. I know that both memory sticks are good as I have tested them both. When I tried to add the second stick in my motherboard, it said that it could not find krnl386.exe and that it was corrupted (that is the virtual memory swap file). Anyways it would not load into windows after that. I then did the stupid thing and seeing if it will work in my Sons computer. Same thing, except that it did not give the error message, it would just say system disk error as if the hard drive was not detected. I now have reformated and installed Windows XP and I have no problem putting in 1 GB of Ram. It works great. Does anybody have over 1 GB of Ram in their computers running Windows ME? I want to know if it is Windows or if it is actually the motherboard.
Abb

i have heard of this problem before, its quite common i think.

i remember it has something to do with both windows and hardware if im not wrong. i dont remember much tho, mab someone else knows more..

Windows 9X (95/98/ME) can only handle upto 512 MB of RAM.
So if you install anymore than 512, it will not be able to address ANY RAM correctly.. and odd things will happen like happend to you abb1..

The "Sweet Spot" is 256MB of RAM for 9X...

If you do want to use more than 512Mb of RAM in windows you will have to switch to a NT(NT/2K/XP) kernal based version of windows

Thanks Jay, I wish I would have known that before. Anyways, it runs perfect with WinXP, but I would rather have WinME. Oh well...
Abb

there is a fix. look on microsoft.com, there is a fix for sure
cuz i have used it before.

Starfox said:

there is a fix. look on microsoft.com, there is a fix for sure
cuz i have used it before.

Click to expand...

I am 100% sure 9x is limited to 512 MB of RAM...
By all means prove me wrong as i would love to put more RAM in some older computers.

The fix from MS is located at article # Q253912 . Supposedly you have to change the amount of memory Windows THINKS you have installed. I found the easier of the two choices to change this was to go to MSCONFIG, click the ADVANCED tab and change "Limit memory to" to the number 512. The when you look in System Properties it will list it as having only 512 MB installed
I have had no problems opening multiple apps (having CD playing, opening multiple web pages, opening 15 JPGS in Paint shop pro, etc)

Now having said that... I am still having some sort of "out of memory" problems with 98SE, even with this fix. I have 2 512MB memory modules installed on what will eventually be a tri-boot machine, if I can ever figure out the damn bugs with 98. When I go online and play games, like slot machines at station.sony.com, after a while of playing, I get error message saying I'm low on memory, or the system just reboots itself. Anyone have a clue what THIS problem is? I can't find a MS article that has a fix that works for this!

The standard releases of Windows 9x ( 95, 98 ) and Millennium Editions (ME) of the Mircrosoft Windows Operating systems can handle 512 mb of ram without modification or problems. I know this from personal experience and Microsofts knowledge database. To exceed 512 mb of ram you must configure Windows using the following information.

SYMPTOMS
If a computer that is running any of the versions of Windows that are listed above contains more than 512 megabytes (for example, 768 megabytes) of physical memory (RAM), you may experience one or more of the following symptoms:

You may be unable to open an MS-DOS session (or command prompt) while Windows is running. Attempts to do so may generate the following error message:

There is not enough memory available to run this program.
Quit one or more programs, and then try again.

The computer may stop responding (hang) while Windows is starting, or halt and display the following error message:

Insufficient memory to initialize windows. Quit one or more memory-resident programs or remove unnecessary utilities from your Config.sys and Autoexec.bat files, and restart your computer.

CAUSE
The Windows 32-bit protected-mode cache driver (Vcache) determines the maximum cache size based on the amount of RAM that is present when Windows starts. Vcache then reserves enough memory addresses to permit it to access a cache of the maximum size so that it can increase the cache to that size if needed. These addresses are allocated in a range of virtual addresses from 0xC0000000 through 0xFFFFFFFF (3 to 4 gigabytes) known as the system arena.

On computers with large amounts of RAM, the maximum cache size can be large enough that Vcache consumes all of the addresses in the system arena, leaving no virtual memory addresses available for other functions such as opening an MS-DOS prompt (creating a new virtual machine).

WORKAROUND
To work around this problem, use one of the following methods:

* Use the MaxFileCache setting in the System.ini file to reduce the maximum amount of memory that Vcache uses to 512 megabytes (524,288 KB) or less.

* Use the System Configuration utility to limit the amount of memory that Windows uses to 512 megabytes (MB) or less.

* Reduce the amount of memory that is installed in your computer to 512 MB or less

http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=35012

I dont believe so.

I know Windows 98's max is 512..

Knowing that Windows ME is the worst operating system in the world..


My conclusion is upgrade to Windows 2000

HaywirE said:

I dont believe so.

I know Windows 98's max is 512..

Knowing that Windows ME is the worst operating system in the world..


My conclusion is upgrade to Windows 2000

Click to expand...

Im with him. Why are you still running ME. I had it for about a week and soon upgraded to 2000. They are no gaming issues or 3D issues at all. Who only uses a computer for games anyways. The Nt kernel is far superior in numerous ways. Its time for an upgrade. Money cannot be an issue if you have two sticks of Samsung PC2700.

{PMS}fishy said:

Im with him. Why are you still running ME. I had it for about a week and soon upgraded to 2000. They are no gaming issues or 3D issues at all. Who only uses a computer for games anyways. The Nt kernel is far superior in numerous ways. Its time for an upgrade. Money cannot be an issue if you have two sticks of Samsung PC2700.

Click to expand...

Well, I have gone back to WinXP (Win2000 is just too damn slow) and installed 2 - 512mb sticks of Samsung PC2700 and everything works great. I now have 1024mb of memory (which I need because I was always running out of memory if I let my PC run and had severel programs running).
Abb

jay said:

Windows 9X (95/98/ME) can only handle upto 512 MB of RAM.
So if you install anymore than 512, it will not be able to address ANY RAM correctly.. and odd things will happen like happend to you abb1..

The "Sweet Spot" is 256MB of RAM for 9X...

If you do want to use more than 512Mb of RAM in windows you will have to switch to a NT(NT/2K/XP) kernal based version of windows

Click to expand...

hehe, proved wrong, was just too lazy too look up all the
above info

There is actually a Microsoft article that states that Win 95 and anything after can regognize 2GB of memory. RThe problem that I see is that it just can't handle it well. I have a system with 2 512MB ofy memory, and I had a haek of a time getting windows to work.
Here's what I did to get mine to work:
I unchecked the set limit box (so now it's at it's 999 default)
Went to system.ini and added the lines
[VCache]
MinFileCache=229376
MaxFileCache=262144

In [386enh]
ConservativeSwapFileUsage=1

Windows now "sees" 1022.0MB of RAM but doesn't spread itself out all over the RAM so that nothing else can run.

When I tried my system at even as low as 524288 in Max File I got a "system resources low", and programs crashing.

Win ME can take more than 1Gig of memory, but there is a patch for people running into issues with more than 384 Megs of memory installed. I lost my book ark to it and I'm trying to find it again.

is there a limit on what NT/XP/2K can take?

like 4 gigs? im not sure but usually the motherboard defines that largely as well and the highest ive seen is 3 gigs..

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q253912

This is the URL for the 512 MB ram issue...the info on the url was posted earlier.

anyone knoiw how much linux supports by default? i suspect it doesnt have the same problems to crap on people who are enthusists

Starfox said:

hehe, proved wrong, was just too lazy too look up all the
above info

Click to expand...

nothing wrong with that...
keeps me in line so my ego doesnt grow to big