W98se slower w/ .5 Gb of Memory

Any advice for this problem. My trusty W98se install is noticably
slower with 500 Mb of memory installed as 2-256 Mb sticks than it is
w/386 Mb of memory. 1-256 Mb and 1-128 Mb stick.
All memory is identical Micron P133 Cl 2.

You can determine whether it's the operating system or a hardware issue by
restricting Windows' memory to 386Mb with the full 512Mb installed. See the
second option in the article below. If it's a hardware issue then the
system will be slower even when Windows is only using 386Mb of the 512Mb
installed.

If it's not a hardware issue try experimenting with the amount of cache
allocated, as per the first option in the article below. It's possible that
the amount of cache allocated means that Windows wastes more time searching
for a cached item than it would take reading it from disk, especially when
the item isn't found. Reducing the cache could speed up the performance.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/253912
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Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
wrote in message
...
Any advice for this problem. My trusty W98se install is noticably
slower with 500 Mb of memory installed as 2-256 Mb sticks than it is
w/386 Mb of memory. 1-256 Mb and 1-128 Mb stick.
All memory is identical Micron P133 Cl 2.

On Sun, 24 Dec 2006 10:30:52 -0500, put finger to
keyboard and composed:

Any advice for this problem. My trusty W98se install is noticably
slower with 500 Mb of memory installed as 2-256 Mb sticks than it is
w/386 Mb of memory. 1-256 Mb and 1-128 Mb stick.
All memory is identical Micron P133 Cl 2.

Some chipsets will only cache a certain amount of system RAM. For
example, my SiS5597/5598 chipset will only cache up to 128MB. This
means that if I add more memory the system will slow down, unless it
spends a lot of time swapping to disc, in which case its performance
should improve.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.