RAM

[Fred]

Ok, My computer is a year old and is getting very slow. (I have a cable modem.) I defrag and check it for errors on a routine basis. I guess I need more RAM- right? Exactly where does one get RAM and how does one apply it to your computer. :confused:

[LarryD]

i was over at putt's the other day checking out his computer. he's got 64MB right now and could stand to add some more. he's got one slot open. he could add a 128MB chip in there and be fine. actually, if you add one that's larger, you should switch them around in the slots.

go to www.newegg.com and check prices. memory used to be very expensive, but the prices are much more reasonable now.

there are two places in charlotte that i go for computer stuff that i can reccomend. let me check their prices though...

[Fred]

The price doesn't worry me as much as I am afraid that I will go in there and disconnect something that will blow up the whole friggin neighborhood!

[Freakshow]

Not only is it cheap, but the best bang for the buck you can get.

My computer was 64 megs. Slow. I went to Best Buy and bought 2 256 meg chips. Think they were like $30 each? Anyway, I pulled out the 64 and popped in the 2 256 chips. My computer is fast as hell now. I can't stress how easy it is to do this.

My wife wanted to get a new laptop. I checked it out and found she had 32 megs. Added 128 for $20. She is now happier with it than she was 2 years ago when it was brand new.

CHEAP
EASY
HUGE DIFFERENCE

[BearBryant]

If you do buy more ram, check and make sure you pc will be able to handle it. Some older pcs will not handle one stick of 512 or 256 per slot. Unless you know or you can find out for sure I would go with a 128. Installing ram is about the easiest thing to do and it will only go in one way!

[Freakshow]

You are right. Check online or in your manual. My HOME PC will handle 1 gig per slot. The original WAS removable.

My wife's laptop had 1 expansion slot. It would only handle 128. The 32 in there already was NOT removable.

[Fred]

Now see- that's what worries me. i don't know how much mine can handle. I have 64 now. I tell ya, being a helpless idiot sucks!

[BearBryant]

Hey fred..Shoot me an email or pm with the kind of pc you have and I will try and find out what your pc will and will not do.

[Puttingood]

I went to System Information in windows and I was about maxxed out on memory. I also found out that as I had been loading new versions of AOL, the older versions were still there. I deleted 4.0, 5.0, and 6.0. I uninstalled a bunch of useless programs and took all the good ones that i had a disk for off. I took a couple hours to defragment and then I re-booted and the RealCities Board was a breeze. The stuff I had on Morpheus was taking up 20% of my memory. Everytime I deleted something , I would go back and check out how much memory I reclaimed.

[BearBryant]

Originally posted by Puttingood
I went to System Information in windows and I was about maxxed out on memory. I also found out that as I had been loading new versions of AOL, the older versions were still there. I deleted 4.0, 5.0, and 6.0. I uninstalled a bunch of useless programs and took all the good ones that i had a disk for off. I took a couple hours to defragment and then I re-booted and the RealCities Board was a breeze. The stuff I had on Morpheus was taking up 20% of my memory. Everytime I deleted something , I would go back and check out how much memory I reclaimed.

Sounds like you were just actually reclaiming some hard disk space. Ram is what makes your pc able to "think" faster along with your cpu.

[Freakshow]

Puttin...See the programs you've got on the bottom right of your screen? If there are some BS ones. Turn them off. Right click on the icon and close. Then check your memory...Bear is right. You just reclaimed harddisk space.

If that helps. Find your menu that allows you to enable and disable programs during startup. I can't remember where it is...but it should help.

[BearBryant]

Another to try is hit control- alt- del at the same time and see what all programs you have running. Alot of programs automatically start up every time you turn your pc on. You probably don't need them running. You can fix this by clicking on start- run and type "msconfig" in the run menu. Then click on the "startup" tab and you can then uncheck which programs you want to start on when you start your pc. I think you can pretty much uncheck everything but "systray" and any antivirus programs you may have and still run your pc effectively. If you do this and something does go wrong you can just go back to "msconfig" and recheck everything and then check each one off one by one until you get your pc like you like it. (actually you should probably uncheck each one by one anyway) I read where your pc system resource should run at at least 70%. You can check this by right clicking on "my computer" from your desktop. CLick on the performance tab and you will see "system resources"

[Fred]

Bear- HP6730.

[Puttingood]

Guess thats what I was doing. I don't have anything loading on start up but ZoneAlarm. But for some reason, I was able to get back on the other board and post again. May have been a coincidence.
So, I can put my Video editing programs back in and it won't matter?

[LarryD]

cleaning up your hard drive will make a difference with video/photo editing programs as they like to stay in constant contact with the hard drive to temporarily store those large files.

the more space there is on your drive, the easier it is for them to find a free area big enough to plop something down at.

the more memory you have, the faster they can do it.

[Fred]

Thanks for the info Bear, I will check out those sites.

[Intimidator Coach]

also go to start : run : msconfig : startup : and uncheck some of the things you dont want to run automatically. Your computer will start much faster and run more efficient. Also you can add an extra fan to keep running cool.

Installing ram is very easy and you wont blow anything up as long as you unplug your comp. I always push the on button after i unplug mine .
Make sure your static free....

[SandMan]

I got one 256ram deal for around $30 bucks from Crucial.com. If your not sure what type of ram to buy, they have a huge drop down menu of pc mfgs and model numbers. I'm now up to 384 meg or ram on a PIII 650mhz. All that ram appears to have my PC running about as fast as my neighbors P4 with 128.

[mathmajors]

Originally posted by LarryD
cleaning up your hard drive will make a difference with video/photo editing programs as they like to stay in constant contact with the hard drive to temporarily store those large files.

the more space there is on your drive, the easier it is for them to find a free area big enough to plop something down at.

the more memory you have, the faster they can do it.

Also, if you run a scandisk, and then a defrag, the drive won't have to bounce all over the disk when pulling up or saving a file. It can deal with contiguous blocks. I've been waiting to use 'contiguous' in a sentence.

[magnus]

huh huh...Ram.

[magnus]

Seriously, though, run as much as you can afford. I run a clean Gig of ram but I overclock.

[BearBryant]

I really see no need in overclocking these days. Unless you just like to! CPU are so fast and cheap these days. I would like to learn myself just so I know I can.

[magnus]

It's not like it used to be, but part of that's because of what you said. I've overclocked to an inch of a CPU's life before, but now I'm only pulling 16% or so. Just something to get a little something more.

[PantherMills]

Question...If you go to Start: Run: Msconfig: Startup:, is there anyway to remove these items from this area without removing the program(or drivers) itself? I know you can check and uncheck it, but how do you remove it? I'd like to set mine back to normal startup. I've probably got a hundred items in there that are unchecked that I don't need to have loaded at bootup.

[mathmajors]

Originally posted by PantherMills
Question...If you go to Start: Run: Msconfig: Startup:, is there anyway to remove these items from this area without removing the program(or drivers) itself? I know you can check and uncheck it, but how do you remove it? I'd like to set mine back to normal startup. I've probably got a hundred items in there that are unchecked that I don't need to have loaded at bootup.

If they're unchecked, they're not loading. If uninstalling the corresponding software doesn't work, you'll probably have to find it in the registry. I haven't found a really good registry clean-up tool for the lack of time, but that might be looking into as well.

[BearBryant]

you better know what you are doing if you go into the registry or you better have al of your important files backed up/

[sdawg]

what OS are you running? I love my Windows 2000!!!! It allocates memory where it needs to be and also has a task manager to see where your resources are going and how much is available and used...