not really Xara

[Erik Heyninck]

but a real problem, and I'm stuck. Perhaps someone has an idea...I can't figure it out myself.

Whatever I do, my memory fills quickly to 99% and then I am, of course, out of memory. I tried every bar separately, and the work well, but the problem is the same with one or more memory bars.

I "fdisk"ed everything, tried format C:/U and installed olmy win 98SE and the fundamental drivers. the same problem. even with simply viewing Jpg's in Irfanview, it adds up.

If I turn of my PC, and turn it back on, I once again have some 70% of Ram at my disposition.
That fills quickly with whatever I do. I lended the Win CD from a friend and installed that. Same problem.

This is frustrating, and I'm stuck. Probably some hadware problem (though no conflics to be seen in Win.) Has anyone an idea?

I have an Asus CUSL2-C mainboard with a pentiumIII 800 processor a daytona Riva TNT2 Nvidia M64 32MB VGA card, and 384 MB 133MHz ram.

Someone said it might be the Bios that's been damaged, someone else said the mainboard, but I just don't know. Fact is it wasn't like this from the start, and everything works fine, except for the memory.

Thanks. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_confused.gif[/img]

[Erik Heyninck]

but a real problem, and I'm stuck. Perhaps someone has an idea...I can't figure it out myself.

Whatever I do, my memory fills quickly to 99% and then I am, of course, out of memory. I tried every bar separately, and the work well, but the problem is the same with one or more memory bars.

I "fdisk"ed everything, tried format C:/U and installed olmy win 98SE and the fundamental drivers. the same problem. even with simply viewing Jpg's in Irfanview, it adds up.

If I turn of my PC, and turn it back on, I once again have some 70% of Ram at my disposition.
That fills quickly with whatever I do. I lended the Win CD from a friend and installed that. Same problem.

This is frustrating, and I'm stuck. Probably some hadware problem (though no conflics to be seen in Win.) Has anyone an idea?

I have an Asus CUSL2-C mainboard with a pentiumIII 800 processor a daytona Riva TNT2 Nvidia M64 32MB VGA card, and 384 MB 133MHz ram.

Someone said it might be the Bios that's been damaged, someone else said the mainboard, but I just don't know. Fact is it wasn't like this from the start, and everything works fine, except for the memory.

Thanks. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_confused.gif[/img]

[jens g.r. benthien]

Erik,

both of them might be right: the mainbord with the BIOS.

A nice phrase I've heard recently in the US: you are in deep shit....

However, there is no need to re-install Win or to format your HD - there are utilities that can check your memory.

Example: start -> control panel -> system or system settings -> the splash screen tells you how much physical RAM actually are available on your machine. If this figure and your actual figure or the mem modules don't match, you have a bad mem module and should have tested it by your dealer.

If this problem haunted you just out of the blue, that means if you did not modify anything prior to it, it points to the mem module as well. However, if you have installed a buggy software...well, even brandnew software packages do have viruses that are harmful to the BIOS. Once it's damaged, you are in trouble, unless you have access to your BIOS (usually by pressing F2, F8 or F10 during boot up).

Than go to the last page and restore the default settings - this should help. You can modify the options later on again. BUT PLEASE take some notes on the current setting.

If this doesn't work, you should flash your BIOS. Asus delivers a disk with each mainbord, so this should be the rescue for you. If you need additional info on how to flash a BIOS, pls read the readme.txt on the disk, your mainboard manual or send me a mail.

Pressing thumbs for a successful recovery!

jens

[Erik Heyninck]

Thanks Jens. I read your message whilst coming back from Asus. Their forum is quite different from this one: mostly gamers that never got past their four letter words period. But the mainboard that was so praised and hailed seems to be practically unsupported by Asus, and there is even a talk in the forum of going to court. Also, contrary to their publicity and reviews, they now stat that they cannot guarantee the stability of the system when you plug in 3 mem mods of 133, as the 815 chipset only supports two.

But your idea of resetting the BIOS made me think. What could have changed it? What could enter so deep? I went down to it, and saw the one thing that could have changed its settings: a Genius 10MB ethernet card, used for my internet connection. The ethernet card WAS recognised in the BIOS, and I remember having had to force Windows to accept the driver.

So I went to the shop, bought a 3Com 10-100card, installed it and reset and readapted the BIOS settings, and it still seems to work fine. I opened all the graphic apps I have and filled them to the brim with heavy bitmaps, making them sweat but no "out of memory" message appeared.

So your comment was the spark that brought Fronkonsteen back to life. Thanks. And if I ever need to flash: I'll contact you. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_cool.gif[/img]

[Klaus Nordby]

Jens, it's good to know such an amazingly systems-savvy guy as you! :-)


K

[jens g.r. benthien]

Erik, Klaus,

you are always welcome. I know that it's possible to solve almost any problem, because I have grown up with these damn machines and I tried to be independent from retailers, support tech staff etc. Several people already told me I know more about computers than about graphics or design - well, maybe they are right, at least ** I ** can't figure this statement :-))

ciao,
jens