System Resources..?

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

When my computer's "System Resources" get below seventy five or eighty percent, Windows seems to get a little slow and squirrely. Would more RAM help this problem? Or, do I have to "unload" stuff from the "systray" to improve the resources (performance)?

(450mhz PIII, 128 meg RAM)

Thanks, in advance!

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

I seem to see about 75% at the cutoff point. I try to keep my system resources above 80% at windows startup, but depending on what "must" load at startup will affect that. My PC is a Compaq Presario with 128Mb ram.

There are some things that are loaded at startup that don't have to be. Supposedly having it loaded and in the systray speeds up the program starting when needed but many are not necessary. RealPlayer is one that does not have to be loaded at startup. I don't find it's any delay when it does load. AOL and/or AOL instant manager or ICQ are a couple more. There's probably more than that.

You'll just have to decide what you need, such as antivirus program and what you don't. However, be careful that you don't unload some system program that is needed.

Then there are system resouces used for each PCI module, the video, the parallel and serial ports, etc., that you can't get at and don't want to remove anyway.

Other than the obvious, it gets tricky.

Larry Beck · From: Pierre, SD

To follow up on what Jack said, I think 75% is a good rule of thumb.
Right now sdram is super cheap. I saw 128 meg for 39.95 today on two of the major internet computer outlets. You can't be too rich or have too much ram and at todays prices, it's well worth it to go to 256 meg if you have the memory slots available. You'll need it for the next version of windows anyway.

Anti virus programs can slow things down particulaly IO operations as opposed to cpu intensive stuff. Most of us would forget to turn it on when we need to if it wern't running all the time tho...

You might also increase the size of your swap file (virtual memory) and put it on an infrequently used drive if you have two hard disks.

Also defrag the HD if it seems slow during read write operations.

[This message was edited by Larry Beck on 27 March 2001 at 05:22 PM.]

Craig Allen · From: BEREA, KENTUCKY, USA

You realy don't need anything loading at start up, except: Explorer; and Sistray.

I prefer to turn things on as I need them.
The only things that I load at startup are ZoneAlarm, and my clock.

You can elliminate everything from your start up, though the "run" command.

click RUN; then type 'msconfig' into the window. Select the 'Startup" tab, and remove the items that you don't need running, by unchecking them. (Leave the systray, however !)

Then Ctrl/Alt/Delete, will tell you what systems are runing. Shut down any that you need too, EXCEPT Explorer, and Sistray.

This all assumes that you are running 98

Bob Knight · From: Bowling Green KY

When we look at memory(conventional), aren't we just seeing the first 640K as resources available or used? -------- ---------------- ---------------- ----------------
MSDOS 46,224 (45K) 46,224 (45K) 0 (0K)
VMM32 2,928 (3K) 2,928 (3K) 0 (0K)
Free 605,920 (592K) 605,920 (592K) 0 (0K)

Memory Summary:

Type of Memory Total Used Free
---------------- ----------- ----------- -----------
Conventional 655,360 49,440 605,920
Upper 0 0 0
Reserved 0 0 0
Extended (XMS) 67,107,840 ? 131,674,112
---------------- ----------- ----------- -----------
Total memory 67,763,200 ? 132,280,032

Total under 1 MB 655,360 49,440 605,920

Total Expanded (EMS) 67,108,864 (64M)
Free Expanded (EMS) 16,777,216 (16M)
Press any key to continue . . .
Largest executable program size 605,904 (592K)
Largest free upper memory block 0 (0K)

Bobby Lee · From: Cloverdale, California, USA

As a Windows programmer, I always think of "resources" as the memory used by the GDI (Graphics Device Interface). This memory space for palettes, fonts, device contexts, etc. was limited to 64k by the design of Windows 3.0, and that limit is still in effect today on Windows 95 & 98 machines (I'm not sure about Windows ME.) The 16-bit GDI has always been one of Windows' weakest points.

Adding more RAM doesn't help a GDI resource crunch. The things that hurt are things like:

too many fonts installed
too many programs open at once
running graphics-intensive programs for too long
running poorly-coded programs that hog GDI

In Windows graphics programming, you ask GDI for objects and it gives you "handles" to them. You are supposed to explicitly release those handles when you're done with them. If you discard them without properly releasing them, they use space in the system resource pool until your program shuts down.

This is why running a Windows program for a very long time can be a bad idea. A "resource leak", as they are called, is a common bug. You have to have a pretty sharp QA team to catch all of the resource leaks in a program. Some software companies have a "zero defects" policy, but that is rare among consumer software products.

RAM is really cheap right now, and there's no guarantee that it will stay that way. Adding RAM might not change your resource numbers, but it will make your computer run better. Go for it.

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Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs
Sierra Session 12 (E9), Williams 400X (E9, D6), Sierra Olympic 12 (F Diatonic)
Sierra Laptop 8 (D13), Fender Stringmaster (E13, A6)

[This message was edited by Bobby Lee on 28 March 2001 at 08:41 AM.]

David Pennybaker · From: Conroe, TX USA

More RAM won't help with system resources at all.

But, as others have pointed out, ram is DIRT CHEAP right now.

So cheap that I now have 512 MB in my desktop, and 320 MB in my laptop.
http://www.crucial.com/webpromo/

Go there, and click the button for a discount.

If you only need PC100 RAM, you can get 256 MB for $77 there with FREE 2nd day shipping. This is CL=2 memory (which means it's GOOD, in a non-technical way of speaking). Even PC133 is only $89 for 256 MB (CL=2). $85 for CL=3 (which should work just fine if you want to save a few bucks).

I'm halfway considering buying extra of this stuff and waiting for the inevitable price rise.

I bought a 256 MB DIMM from them last June or so (PC133 - CL=2), and paid almost $300 for it at the time.

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The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons

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