Need More RAM?

[Jschm111]

I'll try to post here.

I have a number crunching program that uses 100% of the CPU. When I try to go
on-line or open other programs, it happens very slowly, and can even stall.

I have shut down all other unnecessary programs to no avail. Does the P4 not
do well when doing multiple tasks when one uses mopst CPU cycles? Is there a
way to tell if I need more RAM (I have 256M).

Thanks,

Jim

 

[Jim Macklin]

Check pagefile (virtual memory usage), if it is high you
could use more memory. Considering how inexpensive it is
these days, why not add more.

| I'll try to post here.
|
| I have a number crunching program that uses 100% of the
CPU. When I try to go
| on-line or open other programs, it happens very slowly,
and can even stall.
|
| I have shut down all other unnecessary programs to no
avail. Does the P4 not
| do well when doing multiple tasks when one uses mopst CPU
cycles? Is there a
| way to tell if I need more RAM (I have 256M).
|
| Thanks,
|
| Jim

 

[Glenn]

If you have a memory bottleneck, you would notice high disk activity, as the
system started swapping pages in and out of main memory. The fact that you
CPU is at 100% tells me that you are limited only by the speed of your PC,
not by memory. My guess is that your program is using so much CPU that the
other programs, including Windows itself, are having trouble getting any
cycles.

You might try lowering the priority of the CPU intensive program using the
task manager. Go to the Process tab, right click on your program and set the
priority to "Below Normal". Your program will still use all the cycles
available, but only after the rest of the programs have their share. Since
most of the time, even when you are active online, the CPU is not being used
much, you won't notice your program taking much longer than before. I do
this to my virus scanner if I want to use the system at the same time. It
only adds about 5-10% to the elapsed time of a scan and I don't notice any
degradation in the what I'm working with.

 

[Alex Nichol]

I have a number crunching program that uses 100% of the CPU. When I try to go
on-line or open other programs, it happens very slowly, and can even stall.

I have shut down all other unnecessary programs to no avail. Does the P4 not
do well when doing multiple tasks when one uses mopst CPU cycles? Is there a
way to tell if I need more RAM (I have 256M).

Programs have separate requirements for CPU and RAM - they do not
necessarily go together. It is possible to make a program that uses an
enormous amount of CPU time yet needs little memory to work in. To
assess how much RAM you *need* read www.aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm and in
the 'How big a page file' pick up the linked tool that will tell you how
much of the file is currently actively used. If only say 50 MB or so,
more RAM will not help appreciably; if 200 then an increase by that
amount (in practice to 512) will help quite a lot