Memory usage in W95

This is an old laptop loaded with W95 OSR2 as originally designed.

It has only 16 MB RAM and with basically nothing running but W95, it
seems to be using nearly 100 % of available RAM. Years ago I ran W95 on
a desktop with 32 MB and never had resource problems. Is this normal
with only 16 MB?
The swap file is nearly totally free, as it always is in my W98 desktop.

I looked in Task Manager, and two entries are new to me: SYNTPENH, and
Focus 3. It turns out they both relate to the touchpad so I assume they
should be normally running?

I will need to stay with the 16 MB in RAM. If it is just the OS using
all the RAM, what problems are typical when I then run other programs in
W95?

MS

Windows 95 OSR2 should be running on 32MB of RAM to run
comfortably without excessive use of the swap file (virtual
memory).

Add more RAM or try using a utility such as RAMBooster,
which is at http://www.sci.fi/~borg/rambooster/.

Eric,
http://www.pcbuyerbeware.co.uk/

-----Original Message-----
This is an old laptop loaded with W95 OSR2 as originally
designed.

It has only 16 MB RAM and with basically nothing running
but W95, it
seems to be using nearly 100 % of available RAM. Years ago
I ran W95 on
a desktop with 32 MB and never had resource problems. Is
this normal
with only 16 MB?
The swap file is nearly totally free, as it always is in
my W98 desktop.

I looked in Task Manager, and two entries are new to me:
SYNTPENH, and
Focus 3. It turns out they both relate to the touchpad so
I assume they
should be normally running?

I will need to stay with the 16 MB in RAM. If it is just
the OS using
all the RAM, what problems are typical when I then run
other programs in
W95?

MS
.

ms wrote:

This is an old laptop loaded with W95 OSR2 as originally designed.

It has only 16 MB RAM and with basically nothing running but W95, it
seems to be using nearly 100 % of available RAM. Years ago I ran W95 on
a desktop with 32 MB and never had resource problems. Is this normal
with only 16 MB?
The swap file is nearly totally free, as it always is in my W98 desktop.

I looked in Task Manager, and two entries are new to me: SYNTPENH, and
Focus 3. It turns out they both relate to the touchpad so I assume they
should be normally running?

I will need to stay with the 16 MB in RAM. If it is just the OS using
all the RAM, what problems are typical when I then run other programs in
W95?


RAM exists to be used and Windows will always attempt to find some
use, anything that might potentially be of some benefit, rather than
just letting the RAM sit there idly going to rot.

There are two weaknesses in the memory management of Windows 95 that
should be addressed in order to achieve the best performance.

The first one, and the one that is most likely to affect your RAM
usage, is to limit the amount of RAM that Windows can allocate for use
as disk cache. Windows 95 has a tendency to create a large disk cache
when the machine has RAM available for it and then not to reduce the
disk cache when other, more important uses come along for some of that
RAM. This problem is not present in Windows 98 and later versions of
Windows.

Modify the System.ini file for your laptop by adding the following
line immediately below the existing [vcache] section header in the
file:

MaxFileCache=4096

That will limit Windows 95 to using a maximum of 4 mb (25%) of your
RAM for disk cache, which is a good compromise for Windows 95. This
limitation is not a good idea for Windows 98, 98 SE, or Windows Me.
And Windows 95 systems with other than 16 mb of RAM should adjust the
parameter value so it equals 25% of the actual RAM in that machine,
with an upper limit of 16384 as there is little if any benefit to be
gained using more than 16 mb of RAM as disk cache in Windows 95 (and
only Windows 95).

The second tweak I suggest for Windows 95 does not affect RAM but it
does affect performance, especially at startup. Windows 95 starts out
fresh with a zero sized swap file each time the computer is booted,
and then increases the swap file as needed. This results in multiple
resizings of the swap file during the bootup, which slows things down.
The trick is to specify a reasonably large minimum size for the swap
file so it starts off at that value and does not go through the
multiple resizings. For Windows 95 with 16 mb of RAM I would suggest
a 50 mb minimum, although you should check and see what the actual
swap file size is when the computer is being used. The minimum should
be a bit larger than, the largest value seen for actual swap file size
during normal operation. Set this in Control Panel - System -
Advanced - Virtual Memory and be sure to specify a minimum size only -
do not even consider attempting to set a maximum.

Good luck



Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."

Good advice!

"Ron Martell" wrote in message
...
ms wrote:

This is an old laptop loaded with W95 OSR2 as originally designed.

It has only 16 MB RAM and with basically nothing running but W95, it
seems to be using nearly 100 % of available RAM. Years ago I ran W95 on
a desktop with 32 MB and never had resource problems. Is this normal
with only 16 MB?
The swap file is nearly totally free, as it always is in my W98 desktop.

I looked in Task Manager, and two entries are new to me: SYNTPENH, and
Focus 3. It turns out they both relate to the touchpad so I assume they
should be normally running?

I will need to stay with the 16 MB in RAM. If it is just the OS using
all the RAM, what problems are typical when I then run other programs in
W95?


RAM exists to be used and Windows will always attempt to find some
use, anything that might potentially be of some benefit, rather than
just letting the RAM sit there idly going to rot.

There are two weaknesses in the memory management of Windows 95 that
should be addressed in order to achieve the best performance.

The first one, and the one that is most likely to affect your RAM
usage, is to limit the amount of RAM that Windows can allocate for use
as disk cache. Windows 95 has a tendency to create a large disk cache
when the machine has RAM available for it and then not to reduce the
disk cache when other, more important uses come along for some of that
RAM. This problem is not present in Windows 98 and later versions of
Windows.

Modify the System.ini file for your laptop by adding the following
line immediately below the existing [vcache] section header in the
file:

MaxFileCache=4096

That will limit Windows 95 to using a maximum of 4 mb (25%) of your
RAM for disk cache, which is a good compromise for Windows 95. This
limitation is not a good idea for Windows 98, 98 SE, or Windows Me.
And Windows 95 systems with other than 16 mb of RAM should adjust the
parameter value so it equals 25% of the actual RAM in that machine,
with an upper limit of 16384 as there is little if any benefit to be
gained using more than 16 mb of RAM as disk cache in Windows 95 (and
only Windows 95).

The second tweak I suggest for Windows 95 does not affect RAM but it
does affect performance, especially at startup. Windows 95 starts out
fresh with a zero sized swap file each time the computer is booted,
and then increases the swap file as needed. This results in multiple
resizings of the swap file during the bootup, which slows things down.
The trick is to specify a reasonably large minimum size for the swap
file so it starts off at that value and does not go through the
multiple resizings. For Windows 95 with 16 mb of RAM I would suggest
a 50 mb minimum, although you should check and see what the actual
swap file size is when the computer is being used. The minimum should
be a bit larger than, the largest value seen for actual swap file size
during normal operation. Set this in Control Panel - System -
Advanced - Virtual Memory and be sure to specify a minimum size only -
do not even consider attempting to set a maximum.

Good luck



Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."

RamBoosters add little to a system performance and can be detrimental to the
system. I would not follow this advice and follow Ron's advice in the post
following this one.

"Eric" wrote in message
...

Add more RAM or try using a utility such as RAMBooster,
which is at http://www.sci.fi/~borg/rambooster/.

Eric,
http://www.pcbuyerbeware.co.uk/

-----Original Message-----
This is an old laptop loaded with W95 OSR2 as originally
designed.

It has only 16 MB RAM and with basically nothing running
but W95, it
seems to be using nearly 100 % of available RAM. Years ago
I ran W95 on
a desktop with 32 MB and never had resource problems. Is
this normal
with only 16 MB?
The swap file is nearly totally free, as it always is in
my W98 desktop.

I looked in Task Manager, and two entries are new to me:
SYNTPENH, and
Focus 3. It turns out they both relate to the touchpad so
I assume they
should be normally running?

I will need to stay with the 16 MB in RAM. If it is just
the OS using
all the RAM, what problems are typical when I then run
other programs in
W95?

MS
.

Ron Martell wrote:

ms wrote:

This is an old laptop loaded with W95 OSR2 as originally designed.

It has only 16 MB RAM and with basically nothing running but W95, it
seems to be using nearly 100 % of available RAM. Years ago I ran W95 on
a desktop with 32 MB and never had resource problems. Is this normal
with only 16 MB?
The swap file is nearly totally free, as it always is in my W98 desktop.

I looked in Task Manager, and two entries are new to me: SYNTPENH, and
Focus 3. It turns out they both relate to the touchpad so I assume they
should be normally running?

I will need to stay with the 16 MB in RAM. If it is just the OS using
all the RAM, what problems are typical when I then run other programs in
W95?


RAM exists to be used and Windows will always attempt to find some
use, anything that might potentially be of some benefit, rather than
just letting the RAM sit there idly going to rot.

There are two weaknesses in the memory management of Windows 95 that
should be addressed in order to achieve the best performance.

The first one, and the one that is most likely to affect your RAM
usage, is to limit the amount of RAM that Windows can allocate for use
as disk cache. Windows 95 has a tendency to create a large disk cache
when the machine has RAM available for it and then not to reduce the
disk cache when other, more important uses come along for some of that
RAM. This problem is not present in Windows 98 and later versions of
Windows.

Modify the System.ini file for your laptop by adding the following
line immediately below the existing [vcache] section header in the
file:

MaxFileCache=4096

That will limit Windows 95 to using a maximum of 4 mb (25%) of your
RAM for disk cache, which is a good compromise for Windows 95. This
limitation is not a good idea for Windows 98, 98 SE, or Windows Me.
And Windows 95 systems with other than 16 mb of RAM should adjust the
parameter value so it equals 25% of the actual RAM in that machine,
with an upper limit of 16384 as there is little if any benefit to be
gained using more than 16 mb of RAM as disk cache in Windows 95 (and
only Windows 95).

The second tweak I suggest for Windows 95 does not affect RAM but it
does affect performance, especially at startup. Windows 95 starts out
fresh with a zero sized swap file each time the computer is booted,
and then increases the swap file as needed. This results in multiple
resizings of the swap file during the bootup, which slows things down.
The trick is to specify a reasonably large minimum size for the swap
file so it starts off at that value and does not go through the
multiple resizings. For Windows 95 with 16 mb of RAM I would suggest
a 50 mb minimum, although you should check and see what the actual
swap file size is when the computer is being used. The minimum should
be a bit larger than, the largest value seen for actual swap file size
during normal operation. Set this in Control Panel - System -
Advanced - Virtual Memory and be sure to specify a minimum size only -
do not even consider attempting to set a maximum.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."

Thanks for good detailed advice.

Mike