out of memory

[blupanda]

I bought a Dell Dimension desktop L1000R (1Gig mzh, 40 Gig HD, 256 mb ram) recently and have experienced lately error messages about "out of Memory, close one or more programs". Apparently the motherboard dell uses on this model has "shared Ram" wich i interprete as sharing the avaible RAM with the build in Video, and i hate it..........
my question(s) is/are:
can i install a videocard (32/64 MB) ?
do i have to disable the video on the mother board?
thanks in advance
Ernie

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if the dog's don't bark, don't wake them up

[mjc]

If you have 256MB of RAM and are running out of memory I don't think the fault entirely lies with the shared memory for the on-board video...

How many programs are you trying to run?

How many are running int the background? What are they?

When does this occur? What are trying to do? What happens whe you get the error?

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

[Whyzman]

MJC, sounds like the same "Out Of Memory" symptoms you aptly thought was a virus. Coincidental....Not with all the junk floating around now! I suspect we're going to be seeing a lot of these


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May all your dealings in life be win/win!

Whyzman

[This message has been edited by Whyzman (edited 10-02-2001).]

[blupanda]

Originally posted by mjc:
If you have 256MB of RAM and are running out of memory I don't think the fault entirely lies with the shared memory for the on-board video...

How many programs are you trying to run?

How many are running int the background? What are they?

When does this occur? What are trying to do? What happens whe you get the error?



usually i run maybe two or three programs when that happens, however during startup quite a few more are loaded into memory, like virus, getright, icq when online, gator, firewall etc.
the "out of memory" usually pop up, when i try to open one more program, examle: last time it was the windows explorer that wouldn't open.
after i close one or two programs from the taskbar, i can keep on going.
and i think my statement should be right with the shared memory of the onboard video.
however, so far i didn't get an answer to my questions
if i can install a regular Videocard in an empty slot
nivida, allinwonder etc.
and if i can, then how do i have to disable the onboard vide
on the motherboard, or would an installation of the new card
and installation of the appropriate drivers override the
onboard videosettings?

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if the dog's don't bark, don't wake them up

[Rick]

Blupanda
By Default on most plug and play mother boards the On Board Video card will be disabled when you install a new video card and connect the monitor to it.
In a few cases you must disable ( Older Mother Boards) the on board card by using a jumper on the M/B or in the Bios.

So To answer your first question. Yes you can install another card.
After doing so . With the new video card active and with all it’s drivers installed correctly and working you will want to reboot into safemode and remove the old video cards drivers from inside device manager.

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To ERR is HUMAN
To REALLY screw things UP, YOU NEED a COMPUTER !

[Rick]

In Addition one sure way to see exactly what you have running when you get the out of memory error message.
Is to press the 3 finger salute. ( CTRL ALT DEL) once and look at the list of programs running.
In fact it wouldn’t hurt to do this before getting the error and see what is loaded at boot.
Then decide what is really needed and what you can live without.
While your at it check the startup , config.sys and autoexec.bat as well.
If you see dos device drivers and you do not use dos programs or do not require these dos device drivers you can free up much more memory by removing these then by removing some of the smaller tsr’s

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To ERR is HUMAN
To REALLY screw things UP, YOU NEED a COMPUTER !

[mjc]

Your motherboard is an i810 series...most of them use upto 11MB of shared memory (a couple use as much a 32MB)...so so that would be 4% to 12.5% of you memory amount...if you have one that uses the 11MB then that isn't really your problem...your list of what you have on at start up...gator, icq, getright (these are known as adware or spyware)...and all the ad servers associated with them are going to much more memory at a faster rate than your video card. The programs that run at strtup are still running and still consuming resources when they are sitting in the systray, they haven't just gone away. Also if add in things like Realplayer, and depending on what anti-virus program, its settings for a background scan you can easily use up 128MB or more of memory just waiting for something to happen (like the chance you will download something...getright). You start 2 or 3 programs but you already have, most likely, close to a dozen running in the background!

Do the <ctrl>-<alt>-<del> sequence Rick suggested...you'll probably be shocked to see how much is really running after a fresh boot.

If you do replace the video card you will free up 7MB (or 28MB) of that 11MB (or 32MB)...because it doesn't look like there is a jumper to actually disable the onboard video...so you'll have to turn it off in BIOS and disable it in Device Manager...but since it has a 4MB cache you will never get that back...it will alwys go to the video.


You can also check to see how much free RAM you have at anytime by right clicking my computer -> properties -> performance or running sysmon and setting it up to check free physical memory
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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.


[This message has been edited by mjc (edited 10-04-2001).]

[FrankSG]

Originally posted by blupanda:
I


Here's what you can do and will probably work. Click on Start/Run and then in the box where it says "Open" type in msconfig; then click OK. On the General Tab check the box that says "Selective Startup" and then click OK.
You will then see a gob of boxes that have a check mark in them. Those are all the things that run in the back ground. Most new computers have way too many things running if the back ground. This is what is using up your System Resources. You probably don't need all of that stuff running in the background. Just remove the check mark from the box that you don't need running. I can't tell you what to remove, but I can say what you should not remove. Don't remove your virus program or your fire-wall if you have one. Don't remove Systray or Explorer. I don't think you need GetRight or Gator running. If you want to download something and want to use GetRight, before you do your downloading,just activate GetRight. When you're finished downloading, deactivate GetRight. Most of the other stuff, you can probably get by without. If after you remove some things from StartUp and then find out that you need them, just go back and put the check mark back. Another point, if you are running low on System Resources--which it seems that you are--then increasing the amount of RAM is not going to help any. Being low on System Resources has nothing to do with the amount of RAM that you have. Windows allows a certain amount for System Resources--I think it's 64K--and that's it. Increasing the amount of RAM is certainly a good thing to do if you need it, but it will not help you if you run low on System Resources.



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"No one stands so tall as when they stoop to help a child"

[mjc]

Well since Frank posted I can't go back and edit my post...but here (http://www2.whidbey.net/djdenham/Window_memory.htm) is a fairly complete list of what can be turned off from the things that will run at startup....

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.