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And the Version of windows is?
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This should help you:
aumha.org/win4/a/memmgmt.php
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its windows xp home
cheers
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Dave
Windows XP will happily find, gobble up and use this memory you throw at it on its first boot after memory installed.
Are you happy with the actual install of memory in the system board? got the right type, matched the pairs etc?
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Just add the extra memory and you shouldn't have a problem. Done it on a Win95 PC and increase performance straight away!
When you've installed the memory, double-click on the System icon in Control Panel and the first tab page that appears should tell you how much RAM is installed.
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It also depends on the maximum amount of RAM the motherboard can take. As you're running XP I'd guess it's modern enough to take at least 1GB. If you have the motherboard manual it might be an idea to check. If not, can you see the reference number on the board? You can look it up on the web and check the spec.
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If you can't be asked to open the case, there's a neat little utility program which I have used for the past 6 years from a campany called SiSoft. It will tell you practically anything you need to know about your computer/motherboard.
It's called Sandra and can be downloaded from www.sisoftware.net/index.html?dir=dload&location=s...= .
Has proved invaluable in the past, particularly 2 weeks ago when I reinstalled my PC and XP incorrectly recognised by network card as another and so it wouldn't work!
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SiSoft>>
Further to this recommendation, don't forget Windows own System Information which provides full details about your system from every aspect or, in common with SiSoft, Belarc Advisor and Aida32.
These can be downloaded from:
www.belarc.com and www.majorgeeks.com/download181.html
Belarc is particularly comprehensive, yet easy to use.
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don't forget Windows own System Information which provides full details about your system from every aspect
I presume you're talking about the System properties and device manager in Control Panel? I thought device manager only told you what your hardware was from the drivers it has installed? This was my problem when getting my network card to work. Windows had installed chipset A drivers, hence showed chipset A network card installed in Device Manager. I needed SANDRA to get the information off the card that said it was actually chipset B, so I could go off and find chipset B drivers on the internet.
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No, I was talking about System Information...:-)
Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>System Information.
It provides a full rundown of your system - or you could use utilities such as Aida32 or Belarc Advisor which do a similar job.
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Thanks stuart.
I've never looked in System Tools since I used to defrag my Windows 95 PC!
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Hi Dave,
Make sure your motherboard can accept the extra 512 - older boards may not.
XP will just find it if the motherboard is set correctly and can handle it - might be worth defragmenting your disks too.
It will probably run faster after a rebuild, just be careful to have complete backups of your work/important stuff (don't forget outlook!)
Lee
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Lee
Having a Fabialous time.
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Don't start me off on defragging again LOL
In itself, it will do nothing to help installing additional memory. Don't bother!
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No one has flagged this, so I will.
What are you doing in XP that requires 1GB of RAM? I would say that the vast majority of people don't need more than 512MB.
You may of course if you are working with very large image files, movie files, 3D rendering, and so on, but if it's a case of the PC is taking a long time to boot, load and run ordinary applications and so on then more RAM is not going to solve the problem.
Instead you'd be better off cleaning the PC of viruses and spyware (try Spybot Search & Destroy and AVG Anti Virus for free), making sure that all drivers are up-to-date and removing any unnecessary programs, particularly if they run on startup, and so on.
However there are so many possible causes for this, it is difficult to advise more specifically on a forum unless you ask about things that you have present.
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? Don't start me off on defragging again LOL
No, go on, start you off. Can't see what use your post is as it stands.
If the motherboard can't take 1Gb and the system files are strewn across the disk, defragging _will_ help.
Granted, nothing to do with memory directly, but everything to do with performance.
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Lee
Having a Fabialous time.
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motherboard can take up to 4gb.
ive formated it all today and its seems to be running a little quicker. i mite invest in another 512mb of ram for what little it costs.
dave
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Oh allright then... :-)
Defragging will only make a very small difference in the most extreme of cases and is about the last thing I'd be doing to improve performance. In fact I wouldn't bother - a reload would come before it! A reload has the same effect as defragging, can often be completed quicker and has a much more significant impact due to removing years of accumulated carp from the system.
Disk performance these days is fast enough that fragmentation hardly notices. In olden days when disks were slow it *could* make quite a difference but those days are long gone.
Defragging is also one of the most irritating (and sometimes difficult) maintenance procedures to complete, mainly due to continual restarts.
And, as my original post said, it will make no difference to the successful or otherwise installation of additional memory....which was the point of my post.
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>>Defragging is also one of the most irritating (and sometimes difficult) maintenance procedures to complete, mainly due to continual restarts.>>
This is nonsense. My 60GB HDD is defragged about once a month, using the Windows defrag utility, in under 15 minutes and always at the first time of asking - that has been the case over many years no matter what the system setup has been.
Adding RAM is one of the cheapest and most rewarding methods of speeding up a system's responses; even better in many cases than acquiring a faster CPU.
>>has a much more significant impact due to removing years of accumulated carp from the system.>>
Perhaps you should look after your system on a much more regular basis?
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PS
The "continuous restarts" you mention are probably due to the screensaver not having been disabled - any programs running and Taskbar utilities should also be closed down first.
To save having to disable the screensaver, moving the mouse slightly every so often during a defrag will prevent it cutting in at the set time interval.
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"Perhaps you should look after your system on a much more regular basis?"
I didn't actually post anything about my system performance.
Defragging once a month is admirable: no wonder it finishes so quickly. You have to admit that most users, however, only think to do it once they have a problem.
Regarding chucking more hardware at a slow system - obviously this can work wonders. But as someone (was it DavidHM?) said, 512mb is plenty for normal operation of Windows XP and "regular" apps. RAM is cheap enough these days that if it doesn't have the desired effect then nothing much has been wasted, and certainly it is quicker than diagnosing where a system is deficient and addressing that specific problem.
I wil own up to have never defragged under XP, but earlier Windows used to restart because of access to the swap file, not just the screen saver. A real PITA. That's why doing it in Safe Mode used to be the only semi-reliable way to get it to complete.
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Defragging once a month is more than admirable, it's sensible. It was even more so in the days of very much smaller capacity hard drives.
I've been using Windows in most flavours since the 3x days in the late 1980s - defragging has always been undertaken and the operation completed in reasonable time. I have never resorted to doing it in Safe Mode.
The minimum RAM recommended for Windows XP is 256MB, so the more you can add the better to run programs, applications etc.
>>I didn't actually post anything about my system performance.>>
You seemed to infer you didn't worry about years of carp building up...:-)
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Defragging with the NTFS file system is less important than with FAT32, pre Windows XP, but still important I hear from Windows-owning friends who suffer regular crashes and have learned the hard way. Fortunately I'm using ext3, which is journalling and far more reliable than either (and no defragging required).
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who suffer regular crashes and have learned the hard way.>>
Defragging won't necessarily prevent crashes - the causes are usually in other areas.
What it does is help the hard drive to run more smoothly and efficiently as it reduces the requirement to collate scattered files; the longer between defrags the harder it becomes for the read/write head to access/chronologically order the data on the hard disk drive and keep each program together.
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What it does is help the hard drive to run more smoothly and efficiently as it reduces the requirement to collate scattered files
Yes, yes, I know what it does thanks.
; the longer between defrags the harder it becomes for theread/write head to access/chronologically order the data on the hard disk drive and keep each program together.
And can thus cause crashes...
Keeping Windows stable and secure seems to require so much effort and so much third-party software I'm amazed it's been as successful as it has. But then people used to repeat-buy British cars too. It's a funny thing.
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>>I know what it does thanks.>>
I realise that, but others may not...:-)
>>Keeping Windows stable and secure>>
XP Pro has proved superbly stable and reliable, with very little updating (apart from SP2 which has gone without a hitch in mine and other cases), since first being installed about14 months ago.
Certainly a welcome relief after Windows 98 and 98SE - even Windows 3x proved less troublesome all those years ago...:-)
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Certainly a welcome relief after Windows 98 and 98SE - even Windows 3x proved less troublesome all those years ago...:-)
Yes, I couldn't agree more. I couldn't believe the transition from 3.1 to 95 SP2.5 we made in 1997. Suddenly, we had a brand new "Illegal Operation" window which we'd never seen before. Double-clicking on the desktop didn't give you the Task Manager anymore (and still does nothing in XP!). Oh, and it took twice as long to load as 3.1 did on a 33MHz 386.
"Type WIN and press ENTER to shut down your computer."
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"Type WIN and press ENTER to shut down your computer."
Like that one.
May I respectfully hint that we seem to have lost track of the question here, before one of the mods pops in...
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Lee
Having a Fabialous time.
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"XP Pro has proved superbly stable and reliable" - for me too, despite never defragging! :-)
Stability and reliability has also improved because of improved programming of applications. There was a time when there were lots of really crappily written and cumbersome programs out there. Now with rapid development tools and much more use of common interfaces, it is harder for the programmers to screw up. Of course, the operating system also now handles screw ups much better too.
I vaguely remember Windows 1 - I was already an old hand at mini-computer OS internals when it came out. Many features of that 20+ year old mini computer OS have finally made an appearance in XP, which has also contributed to the stability.
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>>Many features of that 20+ year old mini computer OS have finally made an appearance in XP>>
Everything comes to he who waits...:-)
Seriously, as has been pointed out already, we never seemed to spend as much time as we do now waiting for a system to bootup or to get on with what was being undertaken.
It wasn't all wine and roses though. I used to use Amstrad's Locomotive(?) word processor for a club's 400 strong membership listing, which took virtually an hour to scroll through the list. If I missed the name I wanted I had to start all over again...:-(
However, at least one of those compact DOS programs I had at the time is still being used by a business mate and, believe it or not, despite its age it coped straightforwardly with the switch from the 20th to the 21st Century.
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