OT: wierd slowness in computer

Copied Win98SE from HD1 to HD2. Internet useage fast on HD1, slow on HD2. Slow due to massive swapping (ie: "virtual memory"). Took 60 seconds to write this message; swapping during entry of text. How can i find source and fix it? Thanks.

Reply to
Robert Baer
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Maybe a fragmented swapfile?

Try booting from the other disc, deleting PAGEFILE.SYS, defragging, and trying again.

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs

Reply to
Phil Hobbs

You haven't said what the MOBO, CPU or OS is, nor how much of what kind of RAM..

The MOBO matters, because it carries the I/O interface for the HDs. The OS matters, because Billy never was consistent in his ways and means.

Constant swapping usually points to lack of RAM or so many windows/apps open that the same result occurs.

Also, copying large single files is different than copying small files. So if you copied an ISO image file, you will get different numbers than copying the 98SE archive as it appears on the disc, in the form of hundreds of small (relatively) files

To get an indicator as to whether or not it is related to your individual system hardware constraints, you should boot a Knoppix 5.1.1 Live boot disc. That gets you into Linux (or get a newer live distro that is similar.

Set your drives to read/write mode, and do the copy, noting the speed.

That way, you can decide whether your hardware choices, or Billy are to blame.

Reply to
StickThatInYourPipeAndSmokeIt

Go back to HD1. Make HD2 D: for example Remove all of the files in the D:\\temp, D:\\windows\\tmp Remove any other files that you expect to delete soon. Defrag D:

Then try it again.

If the disk isn't too full, Windows will make its swap file all in one place. If it is nearly full, the swap file can be spread around.

Reply to
MooseFET

Why would a pc with, say, a gigabyte of ram need a swap file?

John

Reply to
John Larkin

Are these IDE drives? Check to see what transfer mode they're in. Could be the slow drive is in a slow PIO mode. Don't know if your machine has a DMA setting. What do you mean HD1 and HD2? Are they both running at the same time on different controllers, the same? What? You're not specific.

Reply to
a7yvm109gf5d1

Because PC software is so bloated. My employer just gave me a remote access program--a dialer and VPN setup--that requires 180 megabytes of disc space. In the DOS days, it would have been a 15k TSR, and I would have beefed about the amount of memory it took.

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs

Reply to
Phil Hobbs

a bit like this?

formatting link

martin

Reply to
Martin Griffith

I've just done a repair on a machine that decided to run slow. Turned out to be a faulty hard drive.

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Best Regards:
                     Baron.
Reply to
Baron

From what I understand, it's a waste of memory/money to put much over

128 megs in a 9x box. this is due to lack of HANDLE's in the system and how 9x os handles memory.
--
http://webpages.charter.net/jamie_5"
Reply to
Jamie

It's IBM's fault, you know, for inventing virtual memory. When the

360's were introduced, and core was still above $50,000 a megabyte, IBM claimed that virtual would save gobs of memory, and predicted paging ratios of 200:1. Turns out that users actually averaged 1.2:1. But it became the license to bloat, and to allow the system to manage data spaces so programmers wouldn't have to bother their pretty little heads about it. Which is why some PDF pages take minutes to print on a machine that has more compute power than a bargeful of 360's.

Grrrrr.

John

Reply to
John Larkin

Well if you used your eyes and some regognition, you would have seen that the OS was Win98SE. The motherboard, RAM (1 Gbyte), etc was all the same, i think i indicated that all i changed was the HD and that the copy (HD2) was the slow, virtual memory, swapping one. I *never* use "image" files, and never use "arhives"; this was done using a program that supposedly does exact copies.

Reply to
Robert Baer

Tried that to no avail. Will try Mr. Hobbs scheme.

Reply to
Robert Baer

True, but one never knows what billy boy did behind the scene on these older OSes. For example, M$ has a number of lies concerning Win98SE: (1) cannot support over 512Mbytes, and (2) cannot support over 1024Mbytes. Well, it will support 2Gbytes of RAM, *provided* you are willing to work with the minimum color resolution and minimum number of colors.

Reply to
Robert Baer

HD1 was running fine as Primary Master, and after the *copy* to HD2, then HD2 was put in as a replacement, so it was Primary Master. PIO and DMA modes were identical. Besides, those modes would not change the apparent memory the OS is seeing - so are not relevant to the problem.

Reply to
Robert Baer

Don't remind me. 64K total RAM: after CP/M loaded 56K TPA or after MPM loaded, 46K TPA. Could run Wordstar editing megs of text on the fly, could run dBASE with megs of data, could run a spreadsheet program with megs of data and multiple (seperate) groups and combine them for overall as well as seperate reports. And we now need an absolute minimum of 1Gbyte just to run an OS (no programs)?

Reply to
Robert Baer

How could a faulty HD cause virtual memory swapping?

Reply to
Robert Baer

Maybe, maybe not. I installed 2Mbytes for the fun of it, and was able to use almost all of that RAM; allocated and de-allocated small, medium and large-sized blocks with zero problems, using those blocks for an involved FFT program (that was also in memory).

Reply to
Robert Baer

Check. Wrote FFT type programs that needed more space than available RAM if one were to demand all workspace to be in RAM. Easy to manage RAM space using ALLOCATE and DEALLOCATE, just takes some planning so that there is no un-recoverable gaps (named, i think as "memory leak"). It is easy to lose use of RAM space if you do not plan properly, and very difficult to regain "lost" areas.

Reply to
Robert Baer

No. You stated that you were copying win98se, that in no way means that what you are running under was any particular OS.

IDIOT!. The "win98se" is an archive which is commonly referred to on the net everywhere. It can be in the form of an ISO image file for burning to CD or it can be a directory with the "archive" of files within.

You really need to educate yourself to the fact that words do not only have a single meaning.

Reply to
StickThatInYourPipeAndSmokeIt

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