Adding more RAM to Windows XP?

[Toni]

Laptop with Windows XP Pro, 1.66GHz/Duo with 2G of RAM.

If I upgrade to 4G RAM - is it always good to upgrade WinXP from 2G to 4G RAM?

Can anyone tell me if there a noticeable hit to battery life? Any downside anyone can
share?

Thanks!!!

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Laptop with Windows XP Pro, 1.66GHz/Duo with 2G of RAM.

If I upgrade to 4G RAM - is it always good to upgrade WinXP from 2G
to 4G RAM?
Can anyone tell me if there a noticeable hit to battery life? Any
downside anyone can share?

Are you using the 2GB now? Do you often run out of memory?

Adding more memory (that what you have now - 2GB - for your operating
system - Windows XP, likely 32-bit) is not necessary for most people. Using
AutoCAD? PhotoShop/Illustrator for some big drawings? Editing multi-track
music? Generating animations or editing some heavy-duty videos? Heavy
calculations of any sort? Intense database searches? If no - you likely
are not even coming close to using 2GB.

CTRL+SHIFT+ESC
Performance Tab

Although not the best reference - it is built in and gives you a quick
enough overview to tell if you are running short.

 

[ANONYMOUS]

The 32bit version of XP can use about 3.25 gigs of ram

check your machine specs to see how much RAM the laptop can support

Have you got similar facts handy about 32 bit of Vista?

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Laptop with Windows XP Pro, 1.66GHz/Duo with 2G of RAM.

If I upgrade to 4G RAM - is it always good to upgrade WinXP from 2G to 4G RAM?

No, not at all. In fact for most people, even 2GB is more than you can
make effective use of.

How much RAM you need for good performance is *not* a
one-size-fits-all situation. You get good performance if the amount of
RAM you have keeps you from using the page file significantly, and
that depends on what apps you run. Most people running a typical range
of business applications under XP find that somewhere around 512MB
works well, others need more. Almost anyone will see poor performance
with less than 256MB. Some people, particularly those doing things
like editing large photographic images, can see a performance boost by
adding even more than 512MB--sometimes much more.

If you are currently using the page file significantly, more memory
will decrease or eliminate that usage, and improve your performance.
If you are not using the page file significantly, more memory will do
nothing for you. Go to
http://billsway.com/notes_public/winxp_tweaks/ and download
WinXP-2K_Pagefile.zip and monitor your page file usage. That should
give you a good idea of whether more memory can help, and if so, how
much more.

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Toni:

If I upgrade to 4G RAM - is it always good to upgrade WinXP from 2G to 4G RAM?

I did that just on GPs.

But now that I've done it and begun watching TaskMan, I'm hard
pressed to find situations where I am using more than 1.5 gigs of
memory.

That *may* mean I don't know how to read TaskMan's numbers... but
there it is....

 

[Jim]

Since both Vista and XP use memory mapped I/O, I would expect the same
amount of usable Ram.
Jim

 

[Jose]

Laptop with Windows XP Pro, 1.66GHz/Duo  with 2G of RAM.

If I upgrade to 4G RAM - is it always good to upgrade WinXP from 2G to 4GRAM?

Can anyone tell me if there a noticeable hit to battery life? Any downside anyone can
share?

Thanks!!!

Do what makes sense for you and you environment so the end result will
not leave any questions.

If you have the means ($$$), put in 4GB into your unspecified system.
Then you will know that you have the best you can possibly have.

If you are a general purpose computer user eliminate the questions.

You will never have to wonder if you need more or if adding more will
make your system faster or work "better". It will be physically
impossible for things to be better concerning the amount of much
memory in your system if you have the maximum supported.

No discussion, no what ifs, no might be, no could be, no maybe, no
might need it, no might not need it, nothing to download, nothing to
install, nothing to run, nothing to interpret or monitor, etc.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Since both Vista and XP use memory mapped I/O, I would expect the same
amount of usable Ram.

Also Windows 7. It's the same maximum amount (depending on your
hardware, between 2 and 3.5GB, usually around 3.1GB) in all 32-bit
versions of Windows.

 

[db]

I agree with your response.

it is not for us to determine
how the o.p. will use their
computer.

the upside would be
if the computer had the
available slots for adding
more ram "or"

the downside would be
if the chips the o.p. has
now would have to be
replaced.


--
db·´¯`·...¸><)))º>
DatabaseBen, Retired Professional
- Systems Analyst
- Database Developer
- Accountancy
- Veteran of the Armed Forces
- @Hotmail.com
- nntp Postologist
~ "share the nirvana" - dbZen

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Twayne]

In

Laptop with Windows XP Pro, 1.66GHz/Duo with 2G of RAM.

If I upgrade to 4G RAM - is it always good to upgrade WinXP from 2G
to 4G RAM?
Can anyone tell me if there a noticeable hit to battery life? Any
downside anyone can share?

Thanks!!!

No, it will not impact the BIOS battery life in any way and would be
negligible to a UPS's numbers.

2G is likely enough; it depends on what you do. There are many pagefile
monitors available that you can run and watch to see if your pagefile is
ever maxed out. Task Manager isn't a good indicator for this because it not
only requires RAM space, which skews the numbers, but it doesn't clearly and
concisely pinpoint actual pagefile usage; such has to be deduced and then
isn't accurate depending on WHEN you look at it.

These links should help you out:

http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-5073570.html

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555223

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/File-Management/XP-Page-File-Monitor.shtml


HTH,

Twayne

 

[Unknown]

Laptop battery, not the BIOS battery.

In

No, it will not impact the BIOS battery life in any way and would be
negligible to a UPS's numbers.

2G is likely enough; it depends on what you do. There are many pagefile
monitors available that you can run and watch to see if your pagefile is
ever maxed out. Task Manager isn't a good indicator for this because it
not only requires RAM space, which skews the numbers, but it doesn't
clearly and concisely pinpoint actual pagefile usage; such has to be
deduced and then isn't accurate depending on WHEN you look at it.

These links should help you out:

http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-5073570.html

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555223

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/File-Management/XP-Page-File-Monitor.shtml


HTH,

Twayne

 

[VanguardLH]

Laptop with Windows XP Pro, 1.66GHz/Duo with 2G of RAM.

If I upgrade to 4G RAM - is it always good to upgrade WinXP from 2G to 4G RAM?

Can anyone tell me if there a noticeable hit to battery life? Any downside anyone can
share?

Thanks!!!

You'll need to include the /3GB switch in boot.ini if you want more
user-mode space for your applications but you might consider the problems
with doing that for a general-purpose host (see the blog that is linked in
the article below). Even then, user processes (aka applications) are often
limited to 2GB of user-mode space in memory. Do you actually have any
applications that state they can use more than 2GB of memory? By moving the
OS into the other 2GB kernel-mode memory, you free up more of the 2GB
user-mode space for use by applications. Typically you don't gain much
going beyond 3GB for a Windows XP 32-bit host; however, you may lose out on
dual-channel support (which gives a tiny bit of performance boost) if you
put in an odd number of memory sticks.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/291988

The blog link you find there is quite informative (and that blog has links
to other good articles).

I don't do scientific calculations or database operations but I have
occasionally run out of physical memory which results in more use of the
slower pagefile when doing video editing or conversion. I wish I had more
than the 2GB in my host at those times but that's maybe 2 to 3 times per
year. If you see Available physical memory under Task Manager's Performance
tab when you load down your host then you don't yet need more of it. Unused
physical memory is wasted memory.

 

[Toni]

:
If you are currently using the page file significantly, more memory
will decrease or eliminate that usage, and improve your performance.
If you are not using the page file significantly, more memory will do
nothing for you.

I'm running a page file monitor as part of SystemSuite 7. With 2G RAM and my pagefile
set to 2G, after the past two days my pagefile usage has been 42% max, 35% typical.

During a typical work day, I run Firefox with 15 or more open tabs. FF starts up using
150M, but after a few hours it sucks 500M+ of RAM and my system noticeably slows - I
need to close FF then reopen to reclaim the RAM.

From reading the responses on this thread, there seems to be no downside to upgrading
RAM from 2G to 4G other than cost. As far as battery draw, I guess I'll have to get the
specs on the RAM modules and run the current draw numbers myself.

Thanks to everyone that replied!

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

...

I'm running a page file monitor as part of SystemSuite 7. With 2G RAM and my pagefile
set to 2G, after the past two days my pagefile usage has been 42% max, 35% typical.

Where are you seeing that number? Be careful not to mix up page file
allocation with page file use.

During a typical work day, I run Firefox with 15 or more open tabs. FF starts up using
150M, but after a few hours it sucks 500M+ of RAM and my system noticeably slows - I
need to close FF then reopen to reclaim the RAM.

From reading the responses on this thread, there seems to be no downside to upgrading
RAM from 2G to 4G other than cost.

Right. It's a waste of money for most people (even 2GB is more than
most people running XP can make effective use of), but it doesn't hurt
you in any way.

 

[Toni]

"Toni"wrote...

Laptop with Windows XP Pro, 1.66GHz/Duo with 2G of RAM.

If I upgrade to 4G RAM - is it always good to upgrade WinXP from 2G to 4G RAM?

Can anyone tell me if there a noticeable hit to battery life? Any downside anyone can
share?

Thanks!!!

Follow-up...

Went from 2G to 4G RAM (of course, XP shows only 3.24G available), and after testing
reduced my swap file setting from 2G/4G to 1.5G/1.5G.

Laptop is NOTICEABLY FASTER!!! Max swap file usage never goes above 12% and is normally
at 2%. RAM usage has never gone above 56%.

Oddly enough, battery life seems to be improved?!?!?!? It must be that accessing the
extra RAM is more efficient than hard disk usage for the swap file - never thought of
that!

Toni

 

[Tim Slattery]

Went from 2G to 4G RAM (of course, XP shows only 3.24G available), and after testing
reduced my swap file setting from 2G/4G to 1.5G/1.5G.

Laptop is NOTICEABLY FASTER!!! Max swap file usage never goes above 12% and is normally
at 2%. RAM usage has never gone above 56%.

Oddly enough, battery life seems to be improved?!?!?!? It must be that accessing the
extra RAM is more efficient than hard disk usage for the swap file - never thought of
that!

I can easily believe that operating the disk takes more juice than
reading/writing RAM.