How much mem for WINXP?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Olu
  • Start date Start date
O

Olu

After all system services startup I am left with around 70MB. Obviously this
varys with the services that are enabled at startup but I was wondering if
anyone know s how much mem winxp takes?

I have :-
winxpro +SP1
256 RAM
2x 140 MB HD
Athlon 2100+
ASUS A7V8X gold

Also, anyone know how to test whether pagefile is functioning correctly?
Some sort of audit?

thanks.
 
Mark said:
Mine has 4 Gig on my new Asus P4P800 Deluxe and is smoking.
Click to expand...

Nice, but what do you do that needs 4GB of memory? Would you see a
difference if you removed half of it?
 
Do not you know that man has always gone with the biggest power
Click to expand...
possible.


I know that many people waste money by buying much more power
than they can possibly use, usually without any realization of
how much they are wasting.
 
Olu said:
After all system services startup I am left with around 70MB.
Obviously this varys with the services that are enabled at startup
but I was wondering if anyone know s how much mem winxp takes?

I have :-
winxpro +SP1
256 RAM
2x 140 MB HD
Athlon 2100+
ASUS A7V8X gold
Click to expand...

It will run fine on that, but with that much CPU horsepower, you're kind
of shortchaning yourself by not having 512mb memory. It's sort of like
having a nice sportscar and putting in the off-brand, 87 octane gas.
 
It will run fine on that, but with that much CPU horsepower, you're kind
of shortchaning yourself by not having 512mb memory.
Click to expand...



I don't agree. How much memory someone needs is a function of
what apps he runs, and has nothing to do with how fast his CPU
is. Olu may or may not do better with 512MB. Or going to 384MB
may be just as good a 512MB. Most people running a common range
of business applications under XP do fine with RAM in the
256-384MB range, and see little if any improvement by going to
512MB.
 
Ken Blake said:
I don't agree. How much memory someone needs is a function of
what apps he runs, and has nothing to do with how fast his CPU
is. Olu may or may not do better with 512MB. Or going to 384MB
may be just as good a 512MB. Most people running a common range
of business applications under XP do fine with RAM in the
256-384MB range, and see little if any improvement by going to
512MB.
Click to expand...

My computer speeded up a whole lot when I went from 256MB
to 512MB of memory, and for the most part I just do normal
stuff like email, word processing, and surfing the Internet. I think
what happens is this:

1. After XP has been running for, say, several months; after
you've installed a succession of updates from Windows
Update, and after you've installed a number of applications,
your hard drive gets increasingly fragmented (disorganized).

2. When an application runs, XP pages the code it needs to
run the application into memory. This code includes the
code specific to the application as well as code (in dll
files) that XP can share with other applications.

3. The more your hard drive is fragmented, the longer this
loading of the code into memory takes. As your hard
drive gets increasingly fragmented, the response time
of your computer gets slower and slower.

4. One solution, of course, is to defragment your hard drive.
To do this, click on the "start" button, then go to
All Programs->Accessories->System Tools->Disk
Defragmenter.

5. Another solution, if you have 256MB or less, is to increase
your memory to 512MB (maybe 384MB will work just
fine too; I've never tried it). Increasing memory allows
XP to retain more of the shared code modules in memory,
thus generally reducing the amount of code it needs to page
in from your hard drive when it starts an application. This
results in improved response time. It also is mechanically
easier on your hard drive. Of course, it doesn't hurt to
occasionally defragment your hard drive also.

-- Bob Day
 
But as you say later, maybe 384mb would have done what you needed, too. I'm
glad your computer is running sweetly, mine runs well with 512mb of ram too,
but it is a very valild point that a computer won't run better just because
someone throws more memory at it, especially if memory is not the problem.
 
Robert Moir said:
But as you say later, maybe 384mb would have done what you needed, too. I'm
glad your computer is running sweetly, mine runs well with 512mb of ram too,
but it is a very valild point that a computer won't run better just because
someone throws more memory at it, especially if memory is not the problem.
Click to expand...

That's a very nice theoretical statement. But the fact is
if someone's computer has been running XP for a while,
and it "runs like a turtle" (as another poster put it), and
it has 256MB of memory or less, disk fragmentation (as
I said in my previous response which you totally removed)
is very often the root of the problem, and adding memory
is very often the practical solution.

-- Bob Day
 
That's a very nice theoretical statement. But the fact is
if someone's computer has been running XP for a while,
and it "runs like a turtle" (as another poster put it), and
it has 256MB of memory or less, disk fragmentation (as
I said in my previous response which you totally removed)
is very often the root of the problem, and adding memory
is very often the practical solution.
Click to expand...



You are mixing up two completely unrelated things--how much RAM
you have and disk fragmentation.

There's only one solution to the problem of fragmentation:
defragmenting the drive by running a defrag program. Adding
memory may or may not help in other regards, but does nothing
about fragmentation.
 
Ken Blake said:
You are mixing up two completely unrelated things--how much RAM
you have and disk fragmentation.
Click to expand...

No. I'm not mixing them up at all.
There's only one solution to the problem of fragmentation:
defragmenting the drive by running a defrag program. Adding
memory may or may not help in other regards, but does nothing
about fragmentation.
Click to expand...

Of course not. Obviously, adding memory won't
defragment a disk. But, as I described at length in my
original response in this thread (you might go back and
read it carefully), it is often a practical solution to slowing
application startup time caused by increasing disk
fragmentation, for the reasons I carefully stated in that
response.

-- Bob Day
 
Ken Blake said:
You are mixing up two completely unrelated things--how much RAM
you have and disk fragmentation.

There's only one solution to the problem of fragmentation:
defragmenting the drive by running a defrag program. Adding
memory may or may not help in other regards, but does nothing
about fragmentation.
Click to expand...

You pillock, he said nothing about the two correlating to each other regarding how fast Windows can operate. If you'd read more comprehensively, he cited two aspects for having Windows run slow! Having more RAM will help, as would defragging one's drive also!
 
No. I'm not mixing them up at all.


Of course not. Obviously, adding memory won't
defragment a disk. But, as I described at length in my
original response in this thread (you might go back and
read it carefully), it is often a practical solution to slowing
application startup time caused by increasing disk
fragmentation, for the reasons I carefully stated in that
response.
Click to expand...



That's like saying if your car runs slower because the
transmission is slipping, you should solve the problem by
replacing the engine.

The solution, in both cases, is to fix what's wrong.

Moreover, adding RAM may or may not make a computer faster. It
will do so only if the additional RAM eliminates or decreases
page file usage. And, depending on what apps they run, many
people with, for example 384MB, already don't use the page file
significantly, and more RAM does almost nothing for them.
 
Ken Blake said:
I don't agree. How much memory someone needs is a function of
what apps he runs, and has nothing to do with how fast his CPU
is. Olu may or may not do better with 512MB. Or going to 384MB
may be just as good a 512MB. Most people running a common range
of business applications under XP do fine with RAM in the
256-384MB range, and see little if any improvement by going to
512MB.
Click to expand...

Not so. Outlook (to name one) is a relatively common app and likes to
have lots of memory. Add any popular photo editing software (photoshop
or paint shop pro) and you're way over the 256mb.

I'll go back to my original comparisson of a nice, new sportscar. I
suppose if you only drive that sportscar to the grocery store 2 miles
down the road, yeah, any cheap gas will be just fine. But if you want
to actually make use of that sportscar and take it on the highway, then
it will behoove you to use the better gas.

And in this case, since the better gas (memory) is a 1 time,
*inexpensive* addition (Best Buy sells 256mb sticks for what, $65?),
it's just plain shortsighted not to have it.
 
Not so. Outlook (to name one) is a relatively common app and likes to
have lots of memory.
Click to expand...


I maintain the computers of two others, each with only 256MB, and
each running Outlook. Neither of these uses the swapfile
significantly, so more memory would be largely wasted on both
machines.

Add any popular photo editing software
(photoshop or paint shop pro) and you're way over the 256mb.
Click to expand...


Photo editing *is* one of the memory-demanding apps. Someone who
does heavy photo editing can indeed benefit from 512MB, and often
even much more.

But photo editing is not within hat I would call "a common range
of business applications." Most people (and that's who I've been
talking about all along) don't do that. My point, once again, is
*not* that nobody needs 512MB; it's that how much you need
depends on what apps you run.
 
Not so. Outlook (to name one) is a relatively common app and likes to
have lots of memory. Add any popular photo editing software (photoshop
or paint shop pro) and you're way over the 256mb.

I'll go back to my original comparisson of a nice, new sportscar. I
suppose if you only drive that sportscar to the grocery store 2 miles
down the road, yeah, any cheap gas will be just fine. But if you want
to actually make use of that sportscar and take it on the highway, then
it will behoove you to use the better gas.

And in this case, since the better gas (memory) is a 1 time,
*inexpensive* addition (Best Buy sells 256mb sticks for what, $65?),
it's just plain shortsighted not to have it.

--

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Chris Barnes AOL IM: CNBarnes
(e-mail address removed) Yahoo IM: chrisnbarnes
Click to expand...

Shortsighted is buying cheap memory from a vendor such as Best Buy. All you'll
get is questionable performance and an opportunity to drive your new sportscar
back an forth to Best Buy to return it.

Buying quality brand memory from quality vendors is like getting quality sex
from a quality women. You may never get enough but you will be very happy with
what you get.

Ed
 
Ed_ said:
Shortsighted is buying cheap memory from a vendor such as Best Buy.
All you'll get is questionable performance and an opportunity to
drive your new sportscar back an forth to Best Buy to return it.
Crucial?


Buying quality brand memory from quality vendors is like getting
quality sex from a quality women. You may never get enough but you
will be very happy with what you get.
Click to expand...

How does that saying go? The worst I ever had was great.
 
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