Dell Computers / Win 98 / 2 x 512 MB RAM

[Gardener]

I would like to install 2 x 512 MB RDRAM in my computer (Dell Dimension 8100 1.3 GHz w/ 256 MB RDRAM). I am running Windows 98. I will remove my existing 256 MB RDRAM as I understand that Windows 98 can only handle 1 GB RAM.

One technical support staff for a company selling RAM wouldn't guarantee that the 2 x 512 MB RDRAM would work on my Dell computer running Win 98.

Has anyone succesfully done this?
Has anyone tried this and had it not work?

Thanks a Ton!

Gardener

[johnnyis42]

windows 98 can support more ram, however it does not support it out of the box. i believe it is a registry hack to get it to "see" the ram. the reality is, with 9x and all the DOS compatibility stuff, if an aplication doesn't have its own memory manager, then anything over 512Mb can cause potential issues.

ok, this is all speculative and bassed on what i have read, because i have never used more than 512 megs in 98 or Me. speculationa ll over the internet says that more than 128 megs of memory is wasted in 98, however i was able to utilize 300+ megabytes regularly in 98 and Me by adding the sys.ini file entry for conservative swapfile usage, so that all files loaded into ram until the system memory was at 80% utilization.

my point is that i know for a fact windows 98 will utilize 512 with performance tweaks, however i also know that certian programs under windows 98 will utilize memory better than windows 98 itself utilizes memory; i just have never used more than 512 megs myself.

the rule here would be that if you do not use super memory hungry aplications (adobe, 3d studiomax, premier, etc etc) and those aplications do not have their own memory controlling routines in them, then don't do it. or, just upgrade to windows xp or 2000.

[crossedup]

I have run w98 with a gig o'ram before and it will run but it will not use it all, even with tweaks. If you are going to get that much RAM for game playing or hungry apps sake than go ahead and it will work fine for you.

I had read that anything over 512MB with W98 caused sporatic reboots or lockups and I did experience this, it was not a huge pain and wasnt that often and W98 will do this anyway after running long enough.

So far as support, have you checked around the Dell site? I would be sure myself that my rig could support it before sinking that much $ in it, especially RDRAM.

[johnnyis42]

oh yeah, i forgot about those days with 98 where you could guarentee a blue screen if you didn't reboot at least once a day.

i dunno, it's good to be cautios if you're not sure, but i'd venture to guess it's a safe bet your intel 1850 chipset supports the 1Gb of rambus, either 2 512 sticks or 4 256.