HAPPY

Can anyone help me out with this?

I recently formatted my home machine and had a lot of trouble loading win2k. I occasionally got the blue screen of death and would start the install over...it took many tries to finally get it to go through. I have read numerous accounts of people having win2k install problems due to RAM problems.

As it stand right now the windows install is crap with many problems - but stuff that doesn't bother me on a daily basis so F it.

The problem I have almost daily is spontaneous crashes that reboot the computer. This happens sometimes with little load on the CPU and other times I have many applications running and it crashes. On occassion I also get the win warning "Running low on virtual memory"

Needless to say the computer is 4 or 5 years old now but serves my home purposes well.

Does the above problem sound RAM related.
Long story short then...what do RAM upgrades go for these days? Who? Where?

imported_D dot T

Well, I think you should run a lower OS like Windows98SE rather than Win2k. Sure Win2k is more reliable, but thats only if you got a system that meets its requirements. Also, if your not doing anything fancy with a home machine, I'd stick with 98 or ME. Thats my opinion, but for RAM upgrade, you need to know what type of ram you need. There's quite a few out there, but according to the age of your system, I believe you need SD ram, but I'm not positive until I see the motherboard. How much ram do you currently have anyway??

You can check out www.canadacomputers.com for some prices.

Mugen C

Hi Dan,

I've few questions that I would like to ask you:

1. Which OS were u running before you formatted the HDD?

2. Is it a clone and what kind of CPU do you have?

3. How much "Memory" do u have now (Min. is 64 for W2K, to be realistic, you need at least 128 to give you acceptable performance)?

4. Please make sure all your H/W components are compatible with W2K by checking the HCL.txt (since you mentioned your PC is 4-5yrs old, there is a chance that some of your H/W not working too well with W2K).

As for memory Price, the last time I checked was(roughly, could be cheaper now):

256MB SDRAM is ranging from $65-85 + tax depends on the quality.

512MB SDRAM is ranging from $125-170 + tax depends on the quality.


To be honest, the problem that you have doesn't sound like causing by insufficent memory!

regards,
Mugen C

HAPPY

1. Which OS were u running before you formatted the HDD?
win95

2. Is it a clone and what kind of CPU do you have?
clone - amdk6-2

3. How much "Memory" do u have now (Min. is 64 for W2K, to be realistic, you need at least 128 to give you acceptable performance)?
only 64megs

4. Please make sure all your H/W components are compatible with W2K by checking the HCL.txt (since you mentioned your PC is 4-5yrs old, there is a chance that some of your H/W not working too well with W2K).
Can't find this document - where is it located?


Thanks for the help

Mugen C

The HCL.txt is located at the following path for W2K Pro CD:

[cd-rom]:\SUPPORT\Hcl.txt

If you don't have one handy, please visit the following link:

HCL.txt


As for the memory, with only 64MB, you definitly need more memory.

Oh, I forgot to ask, how big is your hard drive? You better reserve at least 1.0GB for the W2K system partition. Also I would divide the HDD into at least 2 partitions, one for W2K System itself, the others for applications and other junks (e.g. drivers, games).

regards,
Mugen C

HAPPY

Well - right now there is no HD partition. I have a 20GB harddrive.

so next order of business is to get some more RAM and then rebuild I suppose.

Anyone recomend a cheap place for say - 256 SD RAM

imported_Slvr-Bullet

I got 64MB of SD PC100 RAM if you want it

HAPPY

Thanks Steve - let me see if I have a free slot.

imported_loudsubz

Dan,

If your still having problems check out www.thecomputermechanics.com those guys are really good with solving all my problems

HAPPY

thx...

Any others have opinions?

imported_94EG6HB

Try an 8 GB partion instead of using the entire 20GB..

Whats the swap file size??

Are all your components on the HCL for WIN 2000??

Drive IDE or SCSI??

More memory will help...

CiViC [-_-] BoY ™

What ever you do
don't go RAMBUS
******* **** is $$$$ and it only works in pairs and the damn boards for it only come with 3 slots

but it is the fastest ram out there
and i got 128 cause its so damn $$$ to go to 256 cause you can't buy just one stick
you have to buy to sticks

imported_SumAzunGuy

keep in MIND that pc 100 and 133 ram do not match it either downgrades to the lowest which is 100 or will not work at all

also what kinda video card you running?

w2k sux
happyb16 get a copy of win98se stable as hell will not crash whatsoever

cluster

man why do you guy always go so deep into problems


Happy
Have you checked the BiOS yet?

is there an update to your bios?

start from the begining

are you running it as NTFS?

imported_94EG6HB

Ruuning the BIOS as NTFS???

WTF??

lol

BIOS is a good place to start...

cluster

ooops

ya kind of looks like i asked if he's running the BIOS as NTFS

my bad it should have said

are you running the OS as NTFS or FAT 32

imported_SumAzunGuy

he has win2k i dont think thats ntfs
ive never used it lol

imported_My Blue Si

It's more likely formatted under ntfs, why would u format the drive as fat on a win2k operating system
I would grab a 128mb memory module, prefably made my crucial

What's the system specs?

Mugen C

I can hardly believe someone would suggest W98SE over W2K


W2K Known to be rock solid!

cheers,
Mugen C

cluster

why not 98 over 2000???

not everyone needs xp or 2000

well maybe xp to solve some of the problems

but 2000 is in no way needed by half the people using it