ME with 256Mb memory

[dave_stuttard]

dave_stuttard@lycos.com A friend has a 'cowboy'-supplied PC, with an 800MHz AMD Duron, 256Mb memory and 20Gb drive. It runs in Windows ME very slowly, despite all the usual precautions such as defragging, installing and running Norton Internet Security 2003 (no virus/trojan found, but trojan attempts are being stopped) and AdAware (147 instances found and deleted, but no doubt some will be returning). Have unticked most of the dross in the config>start files list too and find it hard to believe that these would bite significantly into the available RAM.

I've now been advised of a suggestion that ME paradoxically runs slowly with a memory above a certain size. That's a very interesting thought isn't it, when you're expecting 256Mb of memory to give you SPEED. Can anyone shed any light on this one, with a solution (apart from the obvious one of wiping the drive and installing XP - although I'm drifting towards that anyway)?

[beeboy]

My experience with ME is that it runs better with system restore removed completely. There is a tool at Cnet downloads that will do this. You are better off backing up the registry before installs as system restore is not reliable. Also, 256 ram should be alright but you can run 500 before you need to edit a system file - over 500 and ME becomes unstable and crashes. I ran 768. XP is definately a big improvement - much more stable and less prone to crash.

[dave_stuttard]

Thanks for your thoughts Beeboy. It sounds like having 256 isn't the cause of the problem. However, the System Restore thing smacks of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted or at least doesn't answer the question, don't you think? At least I can conclude that I need to put XP in (That's what I have on my own system and I agree that it is very robust compared with previous Windows OSs). Thanks again.

[acant2000]

When I installed ME on my PC chips m395dlu with an overclocked intel 2.66 GHz processor because it had only 256 mb ram it didn't install at all. more ram!

[freepchelp]

Originally Posted by dave_stuttard

dave_stuttard@lycos.com A friend has a 'cowboy'-supplied PC, with an 800MHz AMD Duron, 256Mb memory and 20Gb drive. It runs in Windows ME very slowly, despite all the usual precautions such as defragging, installing and running Norton Internet Security 2003 (no virus/trojan found, but trojan attempts are being stopped) and AdAware (147 instances found and deleted, but no doubt some will be returning). Have unticked most of the dross in the config>start files list too and find it hard to believe that these would bite significantly into the available RAM.

I've now been advised of a suggestion that ME paradoxically runs slowly with a memory above a certain size. That's a very interesting thought isn't it, when you're expecting 256Mb of memory to give you SPEED. Can anyone shed any light on this one, with a solution (apart from the obvious one of wiping the drive and installing XP - although I'm drifting towards that anyway)?

I am aware that me or 98 cant really take advantage of memory over about 128megs, I have never heard of xtra memory slowing it down. Have you run scandisk...maybe there are bad sectors on your drive.

I would expect a pc with your specs to run very well on M.E. The restore feature only really cuts in when the system shuts down, at which time it does a restore point.

Nothing more off putting than a pc that runs below expected spec is their?

I would advise either 2000 of Xp and use ntfs. Me is only a glorifies 98se anyway.

Good luck

[acant2000]

I formatted my harddisk, installed 98 se ran scandisk and upgraded but still freezes up.