I just upgraded my system with an ECS K7s5a motherboard and an athlon xp 1600+ the mobo supports either DDR or SDRAM. I have 256 megs of SDRAM one stick in bank 1 is pc133 the other being pc100 which is in bank2(ive tried swapping them back and forth). Ok here's the problem. It seems memory comsumption is out of hand and not being handled correctly...Once I begin to multitask the system runs like crap...Also certain games like Battlefield 1942 will not run at all because once its almost done loading the map windows gives me a Virtual memory error saying im low on it and that it wont give programs memory if they request it. Also right now im listening to music through winamp 3 and posting at the same time and this is taxing the system...My P3550 performed better when doing simple multitasking. I have messed with the virtual memory settings and put both settings at 256. This did nothing at all I still get low on memory errors with Bf1942. I also can run Americas Army but if anything else is open at the same time I run into memory issues and horrible performance. Note : My motherboard reports I have only 196 megs of RAM on startup when I really have 256, I think may be causing the problem. I went to ECS webpage looking for bios updates etc but I do not see a newer version. note: The only things I've updated since installing was Win2k service pack3 and DX8.1a + soundcard and video drivers. here are my full system specs...

ECS K7s5a motherboard sis735 chipset.
2 128 megs of SDRAM (bank1 PC133 bank2 PC100) (Note: Never had problems on my old system mixing these two sticks of ram).
geforce2 pro 64meg DDR (drivers updated)
Soundblaster Audigy X-gamer (drivers updated)
Windows 2000 (servicepack3)
Athlon XP 1600+ with volcano5 heatsink/fan
2 casefans
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Vince

to me seems to be a memory collisions, u are using pc133 and pc100 at the same time

Try this... leave the PC133 module and increase the vm from 256 to 350 in one and in the other one 650.


rgds,

mishkka

Ok I will try this but I did have these two SDRAM modules mixed in my other mobo...without problems. So why would it be happening now ?

I tried this with no luck...The mobo read 130 megs of ram (close enough to 128) but it still ram badly and I still believe to much memory is being used for the tasks being done...The system was still sluggish...

What bus speed was your last board? 100 or 133MHz? Faster ram will run slower with no problem, but slower ram almost always hates to run too much faster. I've always had problems running mixed ram speeds and never recomend it.
My personal opinion is that you need to dump your SDRAM completely and get DDR since your board supports it. It's cheap enough these days and you'll see a nice speed increase from it. Trust me.. you'll like it.

As much as I would like to get DDR I really do not have the money right now, I spent it on the mobo/processor, and in less then a year I ship to Marine bootcamp, So im not sure its worth it...