i have a few questions about RAM...

first, lately when i have alot of stuff going like a few torrents itunes, instant messanger, web browsing etc. my computer has been getting a bit sluggish...
am i correct that if i add more ram i should speed things up a bit??

by the way i guess i should say my hard drive is not full, i run spware stuff and antivirus stuff and have done defrag of the hard drive

next,

i have a fairly new (2 year old) computer it is a dell with 2.53 ghz processor and 512 MB ram.

i have looked in the cabinet and there are two slots for RAM. only one is currently occupied.

now, is it as simple as if i went to best buy and bought another 512 MB card, i can just slide in in the slot and leave in my current one and i would double my ram and improve my speed... or is there more to it that that??

thanks for any help

512 is alot to have and still have issues, but it is possible

go here to crucial.com and follow the instructions to buy your ram, theres a good chance it will be cheaper

well that is what everyone tells me but answer me this...

with 512 memory, lets say i have like 3 or 4 torrents going downloading and uploading alot, itunes playing music, web pages loading and some programs running in the background like antivirus etc... should i be gettting sluggish with all that going at once?

if it wasnt for this board, id have no clue what a torrent is, so i have no idea how much of a hog it is as far as ram goes.

i have 512 in my HP system, and i can have aol, yahoo, firefox/IE open, winamp as well as my norton system works open in the background and adobe photoshop 8.0 and its not that bad

One torrent or more than one torrent shouldn't make much of a difference in system speed, but it will make your internet very sluggish which you migh percieve as a system slowdown. Processor speed will also play a big role here, but with all that stuff open, yes, it may get a bit slow. I'm not sure a RAM upgrade would make a huge difference, but it wouldn't hurt.



If your using Azerus for torrents, that is a resources hog, try bittornado or the standard bittorrent client (which has been significantly updated with new features). Try closing all the unnecessary stuff in your system tray, and run MSconfig to see if on startup yo'ure opening any unnecessary programs (just go to start>run and type "msconfig", look under the startup tab). Run a good spyware cleaner (ADAware, spybot, or both).

How fast is your processor?

thanks for that link, that is very cool...

is there a place like that that will scan my computer and tell me about my video card?

You are doing quite a bit of multitasking. Adding more ram definitely won't hurt, and will probably speed things up a bit. I don't know about XP, but MacOS X has an utility called Activity Monitor that allows you to monitor how much ram is being used at any given moment. If all your ram is being used when you're doing all these things, adding more would definitely speed things up.

As Knight Rider says, the only way you're going to know if RAM will help is by seeing if you're maxing out your RAM. Once you max our your RAM, Windows will start to use hard drive space as "virtual RAM" which is much much slower. In Windows, you can right-click on the taskbar and go to Task Manager (I think that's what it's called?) and see how much you're using and how much you have left. The reason you really want to do this is because, if you're not bumping up against your max RAM, adding additional RAM is not going to help in the least. It'd just be a waste of money. But if you are, adding more RAM will definitely show a big improvement.

i am not sure how to check that exactly?

i ran one program that said my total physical memory is 523212
and my free physical memory is 71396

is that what i am looking for?

yea, thats it...it doesnt sound like its totally maxed out, another thing that i have found when running any bit torrent client is that you need to keep an eye on your upload speed. when you max that out, your computer drastically slows no matter how much ram or how fast your processor is. i have a 3.4 P4 with 2 gigs or ram on my desktop. so i am no where near maxing out everything. however, my isp only allows 15 ~ 16Kps upload. i know this because when i am seeding multiple torrents my upload speed never goes past 16Kps and when it is at that speed, my computer becomes extreamly sluggish. all you need to do to fix it, is to go to the settings in whatever bt program you use and set max upload at 2~3Kps slower than your max, in my case i have mine set at 12Kps, that way i am never at the max. it all has to do with your computer sending small packets of info out to the net and waithing for a response. if your upload is maxed out, you cant send out the packets there for making your computer slow. i know that was long winded, but i hope it helps

yeah that does help thanks!

i have noticed that too, but it seems that there are times that the upload speed isnt at a max and it is still slow...

i saw the RAM i need on sale at best buy for like $45 so i might just get it anyway just cuz i have the itch to do it now

thanks for the help

Well, I did something wrong.

I used that crucial.com guide and picked out my RAM, found it on newegg.com and ordered it (DDRAM 256MB PC2100 DDR266). I installed it easily, started up my computer and bam--no video, and the computer kind of "halted" for lack of a better word and just sat there. It was on and "running," but no video and I didn't hear my hard disk doing much.

I played with a few different things, couldn't get it running. So I finally took out the RAM I just installed and the computer started right up, though I got the "Windows has recovered from a serious error" message as soon as I got to my desktop.

Potential problems, mistakes I've made? Solutions? Did I get the wrong RAM somehow?

Dell Dimension 4550
2.66 Ghz P4
256 DDR (before trying to add the new 256)

is this the link you bought from? it sounds like its the wrong ram to shut you down like that. maybe reboot and go into the bios and see what it says you have.

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I downloaded a program called PC Wizard that tells you everything you could ever want to know about your computer--all the specs from A-Z, what kind of memory is supported, how much you have, how much each slot can take, etc.

http://www.cpuid.com