More Ram

ZiggyStardust

Hi, I have a 3 year old Pentium 3 which is beginning to hang and slow, even with broadband. Is more RAM the answer??? There's 128 mb at themoment. Should I get 512mb??
thanks.

bennyx_o

ZiggyStardust wrote:

Hi, I have a 3 year old Pentium 3 which is beginning to hang and slow, even with broadband.

Broadband shouldn't really effect the performance of your pc. You could do with more ram, the amount really depends on what you use your pc for.

Mr. Presentable

More RAM is (almost always) a good idea, and 512 should be loads for that spec. Also consider cleaning out temp files on the HDD and doing a defrag, that'll help speed it up a bit too.

OfflerCrocGod

There may be many reasons why your computer is running slow it may be that windows is bogged down with spyware or adware or that you have many services running at the same time, or a huge startup list of programs. More RAM may help but not neccessairly what windows are you running? If it's WinXP or 2k then an extra 512 would be great but if it's Win98 it can actually slow down a bit if more then 256Mb of RAM are added, was it fast in the begining? You may just want to back up all your documents and then nuke Windows and install it again and see if that helps the situation.

gline

Probable spyware and adware or virus etc. Try using adaware etc

jessy

ZiggyStardust wrote:

Hi, I have a 3 year old Pentium 3 which is beginning to hang and slow, even with broadband. Is more RAM the answer??? There's 128 mb at themoment. Should I get 512mb??
thanks.

What version of windows?

the_syco

One common reason for computer slowdown is becuse the PC has files all over the hard-disk. To stop this from slowing down your PC, DE-FRAG your PC (NOT format).

The fragmentation is when the files are scattered around your hard-drive, and the PC takes ages looking for them. If you've never done this, since you got the PC, you'll see a noticeable improvement.

Right-click your hard-drive in windows explorer, and click on the "tools" tab. Defrag should be there.

jetsonx

[assumption : you're keeping win98 on sys]

If you buy 512 you're wasting your money. With your spec,
the law of diminishing returns will kick in big time afer about 192MB i.e. put in an extra 128 and that should do fine. Put in anymore than this and there will be a difference but it will be barely perceptible.

ZiggyStardust

Thanks....
It's Win XP.
Whats is spyware and adware??

tribble

WinXP - yep, windows XP eats RAM for breakfast - another 512 (or even 256) would be highly recomended.

gline

tribble wrote:

WinXP - yep, windows XP eats RAM for breakfast - another 512 (or even 256) would be highly recomended.

Yeh i agreee, 128megs is nowhere near enough for XP, adware/spyware are expanded threats, ie not viruses, but they are a nusiance, like popups, ads, dialers etc

jessy

ZiggyStardust wrote:

Thanks....
It's Win XP.
Whats is spyware and adware??

If ya don’t know what Adware or spyware is, then ya probably don’t have Adaware or spybot, you need to download either of these fast as they are essential pieces of software.

What web browser are you using?

ZiggyStardust

using explorer. cheers, going to download spybot now.

jessy

ZiggyStardust wrote:

using explorer. cheers, going to download spybot now.

If you decide to get more ram I would recommend you change from IE to Opera or Firefox as both are far more secure than IE. As it stands you only have 128 ram so IE is probably less harsh on your limited resources.