Wednesday, March 02, 2005
More Memory
There's never enough memory.
When I set up the multimedia machine last year, I allocated the 120 GB hard drive as a single partition. This has proven to be a less then optimum configuration. Separating data from the system was, and is still, a good idea. So, to remedy this I finally purchased an on-sale copy of Partition Magic (Note to self - send in rebate real soon now...) to split the drive into multiple partitions. Partition Magic has saved me a couple times before and it'll be good to have a copy on hand.
Prior to doing anything with partitions, it's a good idea to have the existing partitions fully defragmented. Maybe it's not necessary but at the least it'll make it easier and quicker for Partition Magic to do its magic.
Defragmenting a 120G partition is not easy. It wasn't until I brought the external backup drive online and moved off some substantial number of files that I was able to complete, for the first time ever, the defragmenting process.
With that done, it was time to split the partition.
Partition Magic ran. I set up to shrink the main partition and create a new one. Magic booted in to DOS to do the deed, processed for a minute and popped up ERROR #3 OUT OF MEMORY.
Durn - it's always something.
Well there are no problems, only opportunities. So this was obviously an opportunity to upgrade the memory in the Windows 98 system. It had 256MB. Another 256 MB or even 512 MB should do the job.
A walk around computer lane the next weekend yielded reasonable prices at Hard drives Northwest. So, following one of my newly listed tenents to jump on it I opted for the 512 MB of PC2700 for around $90.
Brought it home and installed it.
Seems to be working fine. The OS says there's now 768 MB. Wow!
Did I mention there's always something? The next day, when running a second compile of my project packaging Xastir on Cygwin - WinXastir the computer locked up. It never did that before. A little later, it happened again. Again on the second full compile.
Now I'm getting concerned. Maybe it's reaching in to the additional memory and something is failing.
Shoot!
Hmmm. Every time I boot off an SuSE LInux install disk, one of the options presented is a memory test. It was also mentioned as a good idea on the Xastir Email reflector.
Here we go. Booted up the SuSE 9.1 CD (Thanks Gary) and ran Memtest86 for the first time in many years. I'm impressed. It appears to be a very thorough and complete test program. Looks like it's something I'll be using more often now.
Best of all, Memtest gives some interesting performance info on the system. Now I know how much cache and what speed it's running on the two main computers here.
The Windows 98 multimedia machine:
Pentium 4 (Celeron) 1700 Mhz
Level 1 Cache - 8K - 13,933 MB/s (yes - that's K, not M)
Level 2 Cache - unknown
Main Memory - 768 M - 11,110 MB/s
The Windows XP Workstation:
Athlon XP/MP 1919 Mhz (supposedly a 2600 Mhz system)
Level 1 Cache - 128K - 11,775 Mb/s
Level 2 Cache - 512K - 3,748 Mb/s
Main Memory - 768 M - 714 Mb/s
I'm not sure I believe all those numbers. It seems strange that the Main memory on a Celeron is nearly as fast as the L1 Cache on a Athlon. There's more to learn here for sure.
I'm still running tests and watching how things are working on the multimedia system. One of these days I'll get brave and try Partition Magic again.
When I set up the multimedia machine last year, I allocated the 120 GB hard drive as a single partition. This has proven to be a less then optimum configuration. Separating data from the system was, and is still, a good idea. So, to remedy this I finally purchased an on-sale copy of Partition Magic (Note to self - send in rebate real soon now...) to split the drive into multiple partitions. Partition Magic has saved me a couple times before and it'll be good to have a copy on hand.
Prior to doing anything with partitions, it's a good idea to have the existing partitions fully defragmented. Maybe it's not necessary but at the least it'll make it easier and quicker for Partition Magic to do its magic.
Defragmenting a 120G partition is not easy. It wasn't until I brought the external backup drive online and moved off some substantial number of files that I was able to complete, for the first time ever, the defragmenting process.
With that done, it was time to split the partition.
Partition Magic ran. I set up to shrink the main partition and create a new one. Magic booted in to DOS to do the deed, processed for a minute and popped up ERROR #3 OUT OF MEMORY.
Durn - it's always something.
Well there are no problems, only opportunities. So this was obviously an opportunity to upgrade the memory in the Windows 98 system. It had 256MB. Another 256 MB or even 512 MB should do the job.
A walk around computer lane the next weekend yielded reasonable prices at Hard drives Northwest. So, following one of my newly listed tenents to jump on it I opted for the 512 MB of PC2700 for around $90.
Brought it home and installed it.
Seems to be working fine. The OS says there's now 768 MB. Wow!
Did I mention there's always something? The next day, when running a second compile of my project packaging Xastir on Cygwin - WinXastir the computer locked up. It never did that before. A little later, it happened again. Again on the second full compile.
Now I'm getting concerned. Maybe it's reaching in to the additional memory and something is failing.
Shoot!
Hmmm. Every time I boot off an SuSE LInux install disk, one of the options presented is a memory test. It was also mentioned as a good idea on the Xastir Email reflector.
Here we go. Booted up the SuSE 9.1 CD (Thanks Gary) and ran Memtest86 for the first time in many years. I'm impressed. It appears to be a very thorough and complete test program. Looks like it's something I'll be using more often now.
Best of all, Memtest gives some interesting performance info on the system. Now I know how much cache and what speed it's running on the two main computers here.
The Windows 98 multimedia machine:
Pentium 4 (Celeron) 1700 Mhz
Level 1 Cache - 8K - 13,933 MB/s (yes - that's K, not M)
Level 2 Cache - unknown
Main Memory - 768 M - 11,110 MB/s
The Windows XP Workstation:
Athlon XP/MP 1919 Mhz (supposedly a 2600 Mhz system)
Level 1 Cache - 128K - 11,775 Mb/s
Level 2 Cache - 512K - 3,748 Mb/s
Main Memory - 768 M - 714 Mb/s
I'm not sure I believe all those numbers. It seems strange that the Main memory on a Celeron is nearly as fast as the L1 Cache on a Athlon. There's more to learn here for sure.
I'm still running tests and watching how things are working on the multimedia system. One of these days I'll get brave and try Partition Magic again.
