Increased WinXP RAM from 256M to 2G - Improving Performance?

[Pat]

I just increased the RAM on my 2GHz AMD Windows XP Professional desktop from 256M to 2G.

Are there any specific tweaks I can make to take the fullest advantage of all of my new
memory?

Thanks so much,

Pat

 

[Tim Slattery]

I just increased the RAM on my 2GHz AMD Windows XP Professional desktop from 256M to 2G.

Are there any specific tweaks I can make to take the fullest advantage of all of my new
memory?

No. The OS will detect it and make good use of it.

 

[JS]

As long as it is the correct memory for your motherboard no tweaks are
necessary unless you plan to overclock your PC.

JS

 

[David B.]

Yes, go to Control Panel > System > Advanced Tab, click the settings button
under performance, click the "Advanced" tab, click the "Change" button at
the bottom, and set the pagefile to "System Managed", this will get your
swap file inline with the amount of installed memory.

 

[Ron Badour]

I don't understand--how would changing the size of the paging file improve
performance? With 2 gb of ram, it's unlikely that the paging file will even
be used.

 

[David B.]

So your saying that setting the page file to a recommended setting is not
something one should do after upgrading the RAM? He should leave it set as
though he still had 256MB installed or turn it off altogether?

 

[Bert Kinney]

Hi Pat,

Right click on My Computer and select Properties. Does the 2 GB's of RAM
show up there?

The best advise is to let Windows manage memory.


Regards,
Bert Kinney MS-MVP Shell/User
http://bertk.mvps.org
Member: http://dts-l.org

 

[Ron Badour]

I did not say anything--I asked this question: How would changing the swap
file's size increase his PC's performance?

I looked at the setting in my PC and the swap file was set at 765 mb with
512 mb of ram. I changed the setting as you suggested, rebooted and the
size remained the same. I then added 1 gb of ram and rebooted--the swap
file increased to 1534 mb. Why this occurred is not clear as I would have
thought the size of the swap file would decrease when the ram increased.
Perhaps the thought process is that adding a huge amount of ram means there
is going to be a huge requirement for ram and therefore the swap file needs
to be bigger. That is just a guess on my part and if anyone has specific
information on this issue, please jump in.

If the OP wants to try your instructions, he should do so without embracing
the notion that this setting could somehow increase the PC's performance
because I don't think it will. One should never disable the swap file by
the way.

 

[Plato]

I just increased the RAM on my 2GHz AMD Windows XP Professional desktop from 256M to 2G.

Are there any specific tweaks I can make to take the fullest advantage of all of my new
memory?

Not really. WinXP will use all the memory it sees automagicallicly.

 

[Lil' Dave]

No, don't believe Ron is saying that.
Windows XP, if left at default size at the outset, will automatically adjust
the swapfile size to approximately 1.5 times the RAM size. Increasing RAM
is automatically compensated in swapfile size in this formula. How much of
the swapfile is actually used depends on open apps and switching apps by the
user. My recommendation, if its already set at default size, leave it
alone. This seems true for all versions of windows that I've seen.
Dave

 

[David B.]

No it will not. Windows XP by default, unlike Vista, manually sets the swap
file size during installation, in order for it to auto adjust when adding
more RAM you need to manually follow the procedure I provided.

 

[David B.]

Swap file size will increase when adding more RAM. If you had left it set to
what it was set at, installed more RAm and fired it up, it would have stayed
at 765MB.

 

[David B.]

I know you shouldn't disable it, Depending on what he does with his PC, he
may start to get low virtual memory errors if the swap file is set too low,
I'll agree it's not really a performance setting, but should be looked at
when upgrading your memory.

 

[+Bob+]

Swap file size will increase when adding more RAM. If you had left it set to
what it was set at, installed more RAm and fired it up, it would have stayed
at 765MB.

If it's set to auto-adjust. There are some who suggest eliminating the
swap file when you get into large amounts of memory e.g. 2gb or more,
the theory being that you force windows to use main memory and not
waste time swapping needlessly (which it does).

As an example of needless swapping, I have 1.2G, 500m in use by
programs, and XP has swapped 300M. Go figure.

 

[David B.]

However, there are some apps that will not run with no swapfile present.

 

[Pat]

I found this page:
http://www.pcmech.com/show/optimize/677/7

with the below paragraph: I did this on a Windows 2000 computer with a noticable
performance increase.

Keep Core Windows Operating Data in Main Memory

This tweak forces core kernel and essential driver files to stay in the RAM, rather than
being shoved into virtual memory on the hard drive. In the conversion over to virtual
memory, performance can drop significantly. This transfer over to virtual memory is
designed to be put into effect when the system is getting low on physical RAM, however,
this occurs periodically even when the system is not low on memory. In those cases, the
transfer over to virtual RAM is often not necessary. Only proceed with applying this
tweak if you have at least 256MB of RAM in your system.

Open regedit and go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/ControlSet001/Control/Session Manager/Memory Management.
Double click on DWORD value "DisablePagingExecutive" and set the value to 1.

 

[+Bob+]

Open regedit and go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/ControlSet001/Control/Session Manager/Memory Management.
Double click on DWORD value "DisablePagingExecutive" and set the value t

Interesting, I'll give it a whirl.