What has PC's memory

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Old guy

W98 / Norton Utilities
Should be easy. Over time, my PC's memory (My
Computer|Properties|Performance) often falls into the 25-30% range. I can't
seem to find what won't 'let go' of memory. I would not be surprised at all
to find I have the capability to find out with the s/w I have. How can I
find what is residing in memory? How can I free memory?
 
Old said:
W98 / Norton Utilities
Should be easy. Over time, my PC's memory (My
Computer|Properties|Performance) often falls into the 25-30% range.
I can't seem to find what won't 'let go' of memory. I would not be
surprised at all to find I have the capability to find out with the
s/w I have. How can I find what is residing in memory? How can I
free memory?
Click to expand...

Actually, it's far from easy. If you run msconfig>>choose Selective
Startup>>Uncheck all four boxes on the General tab(leave anything to do with
boot.ini alone) Press Apply then OK. Reboot. Check Performance. It'll likely
be between 90 and 93%. Now open Windows Explorer and check Performance
again. Do the same with differing applications running. Then close all of
them.Check the Performance tab again.
A DOS-based operating system simply isn't as efficient at handling memory
than is an NT based OS. Third-party utilities promising to restore memory
don't work either. About the best course of action is to minimize the number
of background applications, optimize the swap file, tweak the OS, and ensure
you have a decent amount of physical RAM. If you have the opportunity to try
Windows 2000, chances are good you won't want to return to a DOS based
operating system.
 
W98 / Norton Utilities
Should be easy. Over time, my PC's memory (My
Computer|Properties|Performance) often falls into the 25-30% range. I can't
seem to find what won't 'let go' of memory. I would not be surprised at all
to find I have the capability to find out with the s/w I have. How can I
find what is residing in memory? How can I free memory?
Click to expand...


Free memory is wasted memory. The operating system caches files in
unused memory, so then it's being "used". When an application needs
more memory a portion of this memory being used to cache files will be
reassigned, so it's a non-issue. This is VERY beneficial, since the
first time an application is loaded it's being read from the hard
drive, may take multiplie seconds to open, but if you closed the
application and reopen it (providing you have enough memory to hold
all the files that were loaded from the hard drive) the application
should reopen MUCH faster, all due to this memory being used instead
of being wasted, sitting empty. There is no benefit to manually
freeing memory, the OS will do it for you. If you find your working
with large files, and seem to need more memory, you actually need MORE
memory, installed in the system, not just to free up what memory you
already have.


Dave
 
Free memory is wasted memory.
Click to expand...

<snip>

Ignore the rest of what I wrote previously, I"m a little too busy
today and failed to carefully read your post. My apologies.

If you hit <CTRL><ALT><DEL> you'll see what's running, then you can
identify the items and choose what to disable loading on boot from
MSCONFIG... On the MSCONFIG "Startup" tab just uncheck the items you
don't want loading.


Dave
 
25-30% is actually pretty low. I'd say much lower isn't possible. Are you
trying to free memory for a game or something?
 
Thanks to all responders. Actually, in case you haven't figured it out, I
don't know much about memory. More than once I have had a s/w support guy
have me check performance and tell me my PC should always have >60% system
resouces free (which, I was also told) was the 640k memory. Now, I have a
Dell 800 PC, with 384M RAM.
On an infrequent basis, I receive a 'close some applications to free memory'
message. Other than that, no problems.
May try the CTRL-ALT-DEL idea and see what's running. Everything in memory
is listed there I guess?
 
Once upon a time (Wed, 20 Aug 2003 16:24:47 -0400), Old guy came seeking
enlightenment from the community, after having tried everything possible
W98 / Norton Utilities
Should be easy. Over time, my PC's memory (My
Computer|Properties|Performance) often falls into the 25-30% range. I
can't seem to find what won't 'let go' of memory. I would not be
surprised at all to find I have the capability to find out with the s/w
I have. How can I find what is residing in memory? How can I free
memory?
Click to expand...

Try mpower.

http://www.simtel.iif.hu/pub/pd/61305.html

It's an awesome little shareware program that defragments and frees
up system memory. It returns an unbelievable amount of memory
in 98 and NT. In 2000, memory management is a little better, so the
effect is not so dramatic.

Shawn
 
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