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Replacing or upgrading your RAM. RAM stands for "random access memory" and is used by the processor as a temporary storage facility for data that it's working on. They say that you can never have too much RAM, which is true. You can, however, have too little RAM which will hinder performance of your system by limiting the amount of data that your processor can process. |
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| How Much RAM Should You Have? | Help I Need More RAM | |||
| As much as possible! OK, so you
don't want to spend $200 on two gigs of RAM. Fine, let's look at how much
RAM is ideal for a standard system. Windows XP consumes anywhere between
150MB and 220MB without any programs running, just the operating system.
So, let's say you only have 256MB of RAM installed in your system, that
leaves just 100MB/36MB of RAM to run your programs like WinAmp, Firefox,
Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, not to mention RAM hogs like most
antivirus software and of the biggest of them all, AOL!! Running antivirus
software and AOL will consume more than 400MB of RAM. My point here is that you need at least 512MB of RAM in order to get the most out of your system, assuming you have a modern processor. Older computers (more than 4 years old) will probably not benefit from having 512MB because the processor is only able to handle 256MB, or so. But, like I said before, you can't have too much RAM! |
The easiest thing to do is to take your computer to a local
computer shop and have them find and install the correct RAM. This is due
to the many different styles of RAM such as DDR, DDR2 and Dual Channel DDR
Technology which you may or may not have. Your best bet is to find a
computer shop that will sell you the RAM and install it for free, or at
least very cheap (<$20). A boost in RAM can only help you, not hurt you.
"It is simplicity
that makes the |
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| How Much Do I Have Right Now? | ||||
| Go to your control panel inside
the "Start" menu located in the lower left of the screen. Find "System"
and double click it to open. A window should pop up showing you the type
of operating system, who it's registered to and info about the computer.
Within the computer info you should see the amount of RAM that is
installed. It may be in Gigabytes, Megabytes or Kilobytes. If you have 1
Gig of RAM then stop reading this because you have enough RAM already. If
you have less than 400MB of RAM then you may want to consider upgrading. If
it tells you RAM in Kilobytes then you'll need to convert it to Megabytes.
For example; if it says you have 256,123 kilobytes then just drop the last
three digits and you'll be pretty close to the size in Megabytes, which is
256MB. You may notice that you have a weird amount of RAM such as 224MB or 448MB. This is due to the fact that you have integrated video on your motherboard which consumes a small amount of RAM depending on the size of your video adapter, 16MB, 32MB, 64MB or even 128MB. |
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