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256 MB RAM, K6-3+ @ 550Mhz, Windows 2000 system cache

Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2011 12:33 pm
by davexnet
HI all,
my K6+ Epox mvp3-GM still going strong, I use the box
for light internet browsing, email, bit torrent, network share, etc,etc.

One thing that bothers me, Windows 2000 uses up all it's memory on
"system cache" when copying files over the network and/or
downloading/uploading in bit torrent, so much so that
and the box becomes unusable.

Win2k's memory management is supposed to be self-tuning, but once it
grabs the RAM for system cache it doesn't want to give it back until
the task completes (or you quit utorrent,etc,etc).

On top of that, my mvp3 system has always struggled to be
responsive (opening/closing windows, navigating here and there)
when ever heavy I/O is taking place such as burning / verifying a CD.
I assume it's down to the architecture of the board. I have vlatency
installed. The system is stable, but this problem has always been there.

RE: 256 MB RAM, K6-3+ @ 550Mhz, Windows 2000 system cache

Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2011 3:48 pm
by Jim
So get more RAM for it. You should be able to put it 3 x 256 Meg sticks to give you a total of 768 Meg. That should give you more breathing space; and I doubt if it would cost much now since that is obsolete RAM anyway.

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2011 10:39 am
by davexnet
Crucial memory want $25 for a 128 MB stick.
I must admit, the box could probably do with a min. of 512,
Firefox 4 is pretty heavy on RAM.

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2011 5:46 pm
by Jim
So don't get Crucial, isn't all that good anyway. Hynix or Skill will do the trick nicely. Also Apacer was quite good. If you get Hynix make sure the type number ends with a K not an H. K is CL2, H is CL3.

Posted: Thu May 05, 2011 2:19 pm
by davexnet
Well I opted for the low-cost solution. I looked into it a little
more, this board can accept 384MB max (128 max per each of the
three slots). My current config was 256MB, 2*128.

I looked on ebay and purchased a used, CL2, 128MB stick
for $1.49 delivered. Can't go wrong with that.

It's in, and working fine - I think Win2k can now do a better job
juggling system cache and Firefox 4's memory demands.

A little bit more life for this old PC !

Posted: Fri May 06, 2011 12:03 am
by Jim
No matter what it says, it can use 768 Meg, 3 x 256, except for a few types of IBM boards that had a max of 512 Meg.

Posted: Fri May 06, 2011 10:03 am
by davexnet
OK, thanks for the info. It already feels like a big improvement.
I just want to be able to do some basic browsing using FF4, and run
utorrent at the same time. With 256 it was obviously thrashing, but I don't
see that with 384.

Actually, I have another board in the cupboard, an Iwill kk266-r -
I'm pretty sure it uses the same RAM. It has two 256MB sticks -
only problem is one is cl2, while the other is cl3.

Posted: Mon May 30, 2011 2:03 am
by moondog
Hello,

just wanted to state that 384 MB may be fine, but be sure, the day comes you want to have more ;) My MVP3G5 runs very well with 768 mb. I´m using XP pro and it was awfully slow at 384 MB with FF3... surfing with 2 opened windows was getting awfully slow in short time as the RAM-usage was growing like hell. I´m using Apacer 256 MB unbuffered doublesided PC 133 CL2 Sticks... little hint: try to get some bundled RAM sticks, I got 3 of them including a P3 1000 (used it for my notebook), several cards (gfx, sata, firewire), drives, cooler and motherboard for about 10 euro incl. shipping... I guess trying to get single ram sticks is much more expensive then...

Greetings,

Eric

Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2011 2:49 pm
by jsc1973
I'm able to surf fairly well in FF3 on the K6-III+ 400 laptop in my sig, with 288 megs of RAM. I need to try FF4 and see if that works any better or worse. That laptop never ceases to surprise me since I found out that you could exceed the "official" RAM limit of 160 MB and it would work. It's faster than another one I have running at 550/100 with 160 MB.