considering buying more RAM - opinions?

Velocitee

Alright I'm considering adding RAM to my laptop (you can see why from it's specs below!):D

Anyway I use it mostly for notes,Google talk,MSN and Skype as well as sometimes browsing the web.

I don't want a new laptop quite yet as it's still doing me ok and I use my rig for heavier apps.

What is annoying me though are the loading times of windows and applications that startup, even when I edit services.msc, msconfig and turn off all the 'pretty' stuff associated with windows.

Would I notice a large performance boost just by adding RAM? Is it worth spending money on? As you can see from the sig it has 256 RAM at the moment;192 for sys and 64 mb is set aside for the shared graphics!:o :eek:

If it would be beneficial, I want to add another 256mb at least but am wondering would it be more worthwhile to add 512 or would I not notice much of a difference between these, given the 2.0 GHZ celeron processor?

I'm sorry for the long post but I really don't want to have to spend more cash than necessary on this given the fact it is just used alongside my main computer and will eventually get upgraded

Sleepy

If you're running XP, you'll see a large difference in adding more ram. Wouldn't bother with more than another 256 for a celeron chip though.

Ruu_Old

Yep you will see a difference alright, try shop4memory.com or crucial.com/eu for reasonable prices on memory.

thebman

Try going to C:\windows\prefetch and deleting everything but the .ini file in the directory. It is a list of applications loaded into memory at startup. Its supposed to be frequently used files but its pretty much everything you've ever run.

After restarting once or twice when the usual windows stuff is added back in, you can look up disabling addition of programs to prefetch to stop it putting extra stuff in the directory.

Also file & printer sharing adds a ridiculous amount of time to startup of Windows XP if you don't need it, disable it.

tuxy

My laptop came with 256mb and I upgraded it to 512. It was well worth it, XP is alot faster to respond. Only cost me about 35 euro from shop4memory.com

jimmycrackcorm

XP needs a minimum of 512 mb ram. That's all the op needs for what he wants to do.

BostonB

I've run XP fine on a PII 400mhz laptop with 192mb of ram, fine for just office stuff. But you need to turn off all the glitz.

Perhaps theres a slow HD in the machine? Perhaps a faster speed drive would make more of a difference. Check the specs of the drive in the machine?

Those IM and chat apps take up a lot of memory and resources. So ram would help to run them all at the same time.

Perhaps the machine needs a fresh install of XP? Perhaps get a lighter footprint AV app? Some are lighter than others. Couldn't tell you which I've never had a problem with it, other than Norton and McAfee which bring any machine to their knees.

juliuspret

A friend of mine has a similar laptop setup and requirements as the OP.

I got sick of his constant biatching about how slow his laptop preformed so we ordered 512MB of ram from shop4memory for ~€70 and all is good now!!!

jimmycrackcorm

BostonB wrote:

I've run XP fine on a PII 400mhz laptop with 192mb of ram, fine for just office stuff. But you need to turn off all the glitz.

Yes when you literally turn off or disable everything. I see it all the time on customer sites - two almost identical machines with 256 - 512mb ram being the key difference. I've also noticed it myself on upgrading low memory machines from 2000 to xp. XP just crawls.

TerrorFirmer

jimmycrackcorm wrote:

XP needs a minimum of 512 mb ram. That's all the op needs for what he wants to do.

I've run XP on 64, 128, 256, 512 and above ram configurations. It worked on all of them, obviously not so great with the lesser amounts of ram but its a bit ridiculous to say 512 is the minimum, I found XP on 256, without turning off any effects, perfectly fine unless you tried to do something silly like encoding while browsing the web, and listening to music, etcc.

Also, 2Ghz Celeron is more then enough for xp and I 512 would be a nice improvement, I just generally disagree with the xp needs 512mb minimum statement.

Frenzy

Try going to C:\windows\prefetch and deleting everything but the .ini file in the directory. It is a list of applications loaded into memory at startup. Its supposed to be frequently used files but its pretty much everything you've ever run.

i tried this on my laptop with windows xp and it work really well but i use windows 2000 at work and the command wont work. Is there another command for windows 2000 or is there anything else i can do to improve the speed. its had alot of users and is cramed with stuff i never use. i've only got 1gig of hardrive space remaining! I use CAD and photo shop alot.