Computer slowdowns

could be your virtual memory is highly fragmented. i tend to set my page file to a static size rather than let windows grow and shrink it. less likelihood of it ending up with tons of fragments.

 

good point and a good possibility with Win98, but if this were true it would run slow nearly all the time rather than after being on it a while and a reboot would make a major change with this, it'd require a defrag.

 

but doesn't the page file grow as you do stuff on the machine? after a while, you'd have bits of vm all over a large page file, i would think. unless it doesn't grow as you go. like i said, i always just set it to a fixed size...

 

yes it does, but it wouldn't reset from a reboot, it'd reset from it filling up, and yes I agree 100% you should set it to one size.

 

IS there a rule of thumb on what size to set the page size to?

 

Pretty big.

People used to say 2x your physical memory, but I think that was based on an assumed memory size. I think 1GB oughtta do it. Any more than that and you're gonna suffer from swap lag because the cpu is offloading too much data to the VM rather than the phys mem. The old rule was usually between 512 to 768 MB.

I dont understand though - the only people who run into these VM problems in win 98 are gamers & heavy app users (autocad, etc). Internet browsers rarely have any issues. What is this neopets thing? Does it use a ton of VM?

If so, Nut is right. Good call on the VM fragmentation. I have that problem at work with win2K.

 

thanks I'll check it out tonite.

Neopets, by the way, is this online thing that kids (10-12 yo) are playing. You have these little things that look kinda like Pokemons and you somehow rack up "points" to use to "buy" things at the virtual store. It involves playing games as well. Whenever I use Cleanup there is a ton of Neopet shit that gets deleted.

 

Does it ever feel slow after just leaving it running for a while, no neopets (or more importantly, kids using the computer doing whatever they are doing) involved?

Regardless, when it's slow, try rebooting immediately and see if it seems fast then. If the reboot makes it feel fast, it's possible it's pagefile issues, or more likely just a memory leak in the OS or the game. I'd strongly assume the memory leak in neopets, but another very likely guess is that you've got an infected machine (whether virus or spyware, all the same to me). Win98 just SUCKS on the wide world of the internet, upgrade to XP and keep that baby patched...

Pagefile issues usually turn up in other areas.
And deleting cookies and temp internet files is RARELY needed...that's usually just part of people's shotgun approach when they don't really know what's going on...

 

yup... laudin]