I upgraded my pc a few weeks ago from 2gb to 4gb ram. There was absolutely 0 increase in performance after I did this. I started looking into it, and I read somewhere that my computer only supports 1gb sticks of RAM. When I upgraded, I added a 2gb stick. I was thinking that was the problem, but if I view my system properties it shows that I'm running 4gb. Is it possible that the computer recognizes the new 2gb, but is incapable of using it?
RAM question
- Thread starter phil9922
- Start date
no, if it recognizes it, it will use it...eventually.
You may be misunderstanding extended memory's roll in making a computer faster. It doesn't make it faster it makes it run as it should for longer. Think of RAM like your desk. Throughout the day you are grabbing filefolders from your cabinet and placing them on the desk so you can get to them quickly. You lay out the filefolders side by side taking up room on the desk but you can still get to each one quickly. However once you fill up the desk you have to start stacking them on top of each other. That's like using up all your memory. Once you do that you have to start shuffling through piles and that slows you down. More desk space allows you to have more filefolders open at the same time without stacking and do more things before the computer starts to slow down. So if you weren't using your 2gb consistently before then upgrading to 4gb wouldn't do you very much good performance wise.
You may be misunderstanding extended memory's roll in making a computer faster. It doesn't make it faster it makes it run as it should for longer. Think of RAM like your desk. Throughout the day you are grabbing filefolders from your cabinet and placing them on the desk so you can get to them quickly. You lay out the filefolders side by side taking up room on the desk but you can still get to each one quickly. However once you fill up the desk you have to start stacking them on top of each other. That's like using up all your memory. Once you do that you have to start shuffling through piles and that slows you down. More desk space allows you to have more filefolders open at the same time without stacking and do more things before the computer starts to slow down. So if you weren't using your 2gb consistently before then upgrading to 4gb wouldn't do you very much good performance wise.
Although it's unlikely to be the limiting factor these days, what OS are you using? I recall something about older XP SP's that won't recognize certain limits (I think it was 2gb of memory and 250gigs of HD, but I'm not sure).
Also, how are you measuring performance? Like Eli said, it won't matter much unless you're using the memory a lot, examples would be: heavy multi-tasking, games, video rendering, large-scale data manipulation... anything where large amounts of data remain "active."
Also, how are you measuring performance? Like Eli said, it won't matter much unless you're using the memory a lot, examples would be: heavy multi-tasking, games, video rendering, large-scale data manipulation... anything where large amounts of data remain "active."
I just helped a friend with this problem last week.
He has an older Dell with a SINGLE core cpu and had only a 1/2 gig of ram. (Task manager was showing that he was using 599 mb of ram even though he only had 512mb of physical memory.)
He's running XP Media Edition.
We upgraded his system to 4 gigs of ram. The system now uses 850mb of ram pretty consistently and there is some increased load with his browser and downloads.
He still has bog-downs though, and this is due to his single core processor and that fact that his HD is the older 1.5 SATA and not the newer 3.0.
Your speed is going to be limited by your MB's FSB speed in the first part of the equation. Then by your ram followed by your CPU's speed and number of core processors. (A quad core 2.2 GHz will absolutely KILL a single core P4 Extreme that is running at 3.73GHz.) Then it will be your HD access speed as the final link in the speed equation.
Eli gave you the real deal straight scoop on RAM.
I'd suggest that you keep your HD defrag'd and delete your temporary folder on a regular basis to help with the speed of your system.
Also, do your best to keep at LEAST 20% of your HD's capacity free at all times with XP. (It needs this head room to page map the virtual memory, for defragging and various other system functions.
Since you're using Graphics programs like PhotoShop I won't suggest that you tone down the visual effects in XP that would also add more responsiveness to your system.
Go here: Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP and download TweakUI.exe and run it to help with the speed. Run the "Start-Up" optimization routine. They say it only helps with boot time, but myself and others have seen up to a 15% overall performance increase from running this.
If you don't have CCleaner, I would suggest getting it and running it once a week to clean up your registry. (Registry clutter and empty commands bog things down also.) Let it backup your registry before it cleans it. Be sure to run the registry cleaner a couple of times in succession since it will find new invalid entries after the fist run on occasion. Basically, run it unitil it comes up with nothing being found to fix. It can also clean your temp folders and cookies if you want it to.
CCleaner - Download
If you leave your system on for days at at time like I do, you might consider re-booting if it seems to get slow.
If your browser seems slow or your downloads, you can go here: SpeedGuide.net :: TCP Optimizer / Downloads to download an optimizer.exe program. Be sure to let it back up your registry prior to it running as it tunes up your registry entries for your ports and other network settings. I've run it on my XP Pro, Vista Ultimate, and Win7 Ultimate RC. It definitely improved my internet performance.
Side Note to RAM...
Putting your Virtual Memory on a separate partition will help increase overall PC speed.
One physical 150GB+ HDD partition:
c: [os] [15gb]
d: [virtual mem] [10bg]
e: [software] [x]
Then a 2nd 1TB + HDD for media.
f: [media]
I've seen the best results from this setup.
Putting your Virtual Memory on a separate partition will help increase overall PC speed.
One physical 150GB+ HDD partition:
c: [os] [15gb]
d: [virtual mem] [10bg]
e: [software] [x]
Then a 2nd 1TB + HDD for media.
f: [media]
I've seen the best results from this setup.
xp can only utilize 3 gb ram no matter what you do, probably your processor that is the bottle neck
some computers use dual channel memory to make the most of the bandwidth available - if that's the case on yours, then you need to use identical sticks. i.e.:
2x2GB,
2x1GB
4x1GB
whatever. if you mix up 1x1GB + 2x512MB you'll actually hurt performance if you're on a motherboard that uses dual channel
2x2GB,
2x1GB
4x1GB
whatever. if you mix up 1x1GB + 2x512MB you'll actually hurt performance if you're on a motherboard that uses dual channel
phil9922 said:
The Dell that I worked on said that it only handled 1GB sticks per bank. It had only 4 banks (Two dual channels, so we got matched pairs of ram.) and the MB would only handle 4 GB max so we went with 4 1 gig sticks.
Some of the 2GB sticks will work on older MB's, but some of the CHEAPER off brand sticks have "weird" voltages and can actually fry some MB's over time.
Usually pretty safe with Corsair or Kingsten low density chips.
^^^^^^LOL
Yes, it's taken care of with the hosts file on my Vista Ultimate and XP Pro machines.
BUT, my damn Win7 Ultimate RC got screwed up about 12 updates ago. For some reason the hosts file is NOT in my networking loop. That and I have to DISABLE my network card every time I re-boot the system and then let Win7 run a diagnostic scan and re-enable the network adapter or I cannot get online. It creates an EXTRA "PUBLIC" network connection along with my private one on start up and they are both on the same adapter. (It's irritating.)
Both of these things happened around the same time after an update. So I just use No-Script in FF on the Win7 machine now.
exactly what midas said in both posts, but if its XP pro it can support up to 4gb which is probably what your mb is as well since you said it recognized it in the system properties, but the virtual memory has a max of 3gb (if the /3GB switch is on) so that often causes the confusion