22 Dec
1998
22 Dec
'98
5:11 p.m.
Jason Willgruber wrote:
I do agree that 4 MB can do a good amount of stuff (even run IE3.02 for win
3.1). Minix would be great, but my friend wanted to have Win'95 on it,
which is why I threw in the 120MB HD and 14.4 modem. I figured that since
my IBM laptop runs Win'95 fairly good with a 386-20, 120MB HD, and 6 MB RAM,
that the Tandy (486-20) would run it great with 10 MB RAM, until I
discovered that the RAM wouldn't work, and it only has 4 MB.
Would a new BIOS chip solve the problem, or does the RAM limitation have to
do with the M/B? I know in my Tandy 1800HD (same as 3800HD, but a 286),
when I put in the 4 MB chips, the computer boots, and recognizes 1 MB out of
each of the chips, then runs down a huge list of memory errors, then works
fine (after the errors are done).
If a new BIOS won't work, has anyone ever ran Win'95 with 4 MB RAM? How
does it perform?
I've no idea how Win95 _works_ with 4MB RAM, since it doesn't _work_
with 16MB -- though with 16MB it boots within a few minutes. I took
a system on which I'd loaded Win95 (P90, 16MB) and dropped it to 4MB
(I'd have preferred to use a smaller increment, but that's the SIMMS
I had). Win95 seemed to be booting normally (the disk was thrashing
like a barracuda), but after 48 hours I decided the machine was
better off either dead or with a real OS, so it's got Linux. Which
installed fine with the 4MB configuration. And screamed when I
beefed it back up to 16MB.
--
Ward Griffiths <mailto:gram@cnct.com> <http://www.cnct.com/home/gram/>
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