Re: Should I add RAM, free up more HD space, or something else?

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On Tue, 8 Jan 2008 15:51:49 -0800 (PST), aylok2007
<kolya1955@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Greetings from a hopeless nontechie!

My PC, a Dell I got a few years ago, slowed down considerably. It's 36
G Hard Drive only had 4 percent of free space. I freed up a
considerable amount and it now has almost 25 percent of free space
(about 8 Gs). This, however, did not really speed up the computer.
Should I increase the RAM from 256 MB to 512 MB? Or is there something
else I should check first?


Depending on what applications you run, yes, adding RAM may well help
you.

You get good performance if the amount of RAM you have keeps you from
using the page file, and that depends on what apps you run. Most
people running a typical range of business applications find that
somewhere around 256-384MB works well, others need 512MB. Almost
anyone will see poor performance with less than 256MB. Some people,
particularly those doing things like editing large photographic
images, can see a performance boost by adding even more than
512MB--sometimes much more.

If you are currently using the page file significantly, more memory
will decrease or eliminate that usage, and improve your performance.
If you are not using the page file significantly, more memory will do
nothing for you. Go to
http://billsway.com/notes%5Fpublic/winxp%5Ftweaks/ and download
WinXP-2K_Pagefile.zip and monitor your pagefile usage. That should
give you a good idea of whether more memory can help, and if so, how
much more.

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User
Please Reply to the Newsgroup
.

Relevant Pages

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