upgrading memory

[mooky]

I have posted several threads about having PC and Windows XP
problems...I FINALLY fixed those problems myself by doing Google
searches the past 2 or 3 weeks...I don't want to go into major details
of all my errors, but somehow my permissions in XP Home got screwed up
and I could run most of my programs and kept getting errors when
trying to register .dll files. I did trace my freezing problem by
trial and error with my memory. I was doing a repair install, which
never helped anything, and it kept freezing up when having only 13
mins left to install...I put in my old RAM after removing the 2 sticks
of 256 and it froze up even faster. I then put my RAM I had back
in...after freezing up again I took out one of the 356 sticks and
finished with the repair install...now I am upgrading my memory and
purchased 2 sticks of 512....I am wondering if I would have the same
problems with freezing up again if I install both sticks of RAM...I am
not sure if the RAM is bad I removed or the slot is faulty....they
were both KINGSTON 256mb pc133 sdram...Also had a "memory could not be
read" error when they were both installed and I was using Windows
media player and watching streaming video when I closed the
player...also had that same problem when listening to Shoutcast radio
after closing winamp. I never knew why that was and am hoping that I
do not have the same problems with my new memory. The PC ran fine for
a few months or more before I started having random freezes...I am
just hoping it was a fulty stick of RAM. How could I tell if my
memory slot that was bad?

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I have posted several threads about having PC and Windows XP
problems...I FINALLY fixed those problems myself by doing Google
searches the past 2 or 3 weeks...I don't want to go into major details
of all my errors, but somehow my permissions in XP Home got screwed up
and I could run most of my programs and kept getting errors when
trying to register .dll files. I did trace my freezing problem by
trial and error with my memory. I was doing a repair install, which
never helped anything, and it kept freezing up when having only 13
mins left to install...I put in my old RAM after removing the 2 sticks
of 256 and it froze up even faster. I then put my RAM I had back
in...after freezing up again I took out one of the 356 sticks and
finished with the repair install...now I am upgrading my memory and
purchased 2 sticks of 512....I am wondering if I would have the same
problems with freezing up again if I install both sticks of RAM...I am
not sure if the RAM is bad I removed or the slot is faulty....they
were both KINGSTON 256mb pc133 sdram...Also had a "memory could not be
read" error when they were both installed and I was using Windows
media player and watching streaming video when I closed the
player...also had that same problem when listening to Shoutcast radio
after closing winamp. I never knew why that was and am hoping that I
do not have the same problems with my new memory. The PC ran fine for
a few months or more before I started having random freezes...I am
just hoping it was a fulty stick of RAM.

It is absolutely essential that any new RAM module(s) be fully
compatible with both the motherboard and/or any other RAM module(s)
already in the system. Additionally, there are sometimes jumper
switches on older motherboards that need to be reset for new RAM
configurations. Consult your motherboard's manual or the
manufacturer's web site for specific instructions and compatibility
requirements.

If you cannot lay your hands upon the computer's manual and the
manufacturer doesn't provide a support web site, you can use these
utilities to help determine the correct type of RAM needed:

SiSoft's Sandra
http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/index.php?dir=&location=sware_dl&lang=en

Belarc Advisor
http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

Unlimited Possibilities' AIDA32
http://forum.aumha.org/overflow/aida32.zip

Also, Crucial Memory's web site (www.crucial.com) has a database
to help to find the right RAM for your specific make and model
computer and/or motherboard. (Incidentally, Crucial is the only company
from which I ever buy RAM. I've never been disappointed.)

How could I tell if my
memory slot that was bad?

Use MemTest86 (http://www.memtest86.com/) It's free. Then you can
check with the motherboard manufacturer for any additional diagnostic
utilities.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell

 

[mooky]

It is absolutely essential that any new RAM module(s) be fully
compatible with both the motherboard and/or any other RAM module(s)
already in the system. Additionally, there are sometimes jumper
switches on older motherboards that need to be reset for new RAM
configurations. Consult your motherboard's manual or the
manufacturer's web site for specific instructions and compatibility
requirements.

If you cannot lay your hands upon the computer's manual and the
manufacturer doesn't provide a support web site, you can use these
utilities to help determine the correct type of RAM needed:

SiSoft's Sandrahttp://www.sisoftware.co.uk/index.php?dir=&location=sware_dl =en

Belarc Advisorhttp://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

Unlimited Possibilities' AIDA32http://forum.aumha.org/overflow/aida32.zip

Also, Crucial Memory's web site (www.crucial.com) has a database
to help to find the right RAM for your specific make and model
computer and/or motherboard. (Incidentally, Crucial is the only company
from which I ever buy RAM. I've never been disappointed.)


Use MemTest86 (http://www.memtest86.com/) It's free. Then you can
check with the motherboard manufacturer for any additional diagnostic
utilities.

--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htmhttp://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell

thanks for the info...I did a search on crucial's site...I do have an
older motherboard...I need a new PC, but for now I can just get the
RAM...I did a memory scan on crucial's site before I started this
thread. not sure about resetting the jumpers for new memory. Didn't
know I needed to do that or maybe I don't. I used to have the
motherboard manual, but not sure where it is...this PC is about 6
years old and I have pushed it to the limit. It's a p3 1ghz I bought
on Ebay...I am surprised it lasted this long..I'll see if I can get
online and find out about the jumpers. Thanks again for the help. I
really appreciate it.

 

[mooky]

thanks for the info...I did a search on crucial's site...I do have an
older motherboard...I need a new PC, but for now I can just get the
RAM...I did a memory scan on crucial's site before I started this
thread. not sure about resetting the jumpers for new memory. Didn't
know I needed to do that or maybe I don't. I used to have the
motherboard manual, but not sure where it is...this PC is about 6
years old and I have pushed it to the limit. It's a p3 1ghz I bought
on Ebay...I am surprised it lasted this long..I'll see if I can get
online and find out about the jumpers. Thanks again for the help. I
really appreciate it.

I did find info on the motherboard and that the only jumpers are for
the CMOS settings. Also wanted to know if I would notice much
difference by adding the full gig(2 x 512) from just using the stick
of 512 in my P3 1ghz machine?

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I did find info on the motherboard and that the only jumpers are for
the CMOS settings. Also wanted to know if I would notice much
difference by adding the full gig(2 x 512) from just using the stick
of 512 in my P3 1ghz machine?

Again, you'll need to check with the motherboard manufacturer (or maybe
Crucial) for its maximum capacity, but I'm not at all sure that such an
old motherboard would even support a gigabyte of RAM. Even if it does,
you're not likely to see much of a performance gain, as the P-III CPU
will be a huge "bottle-neck." This being the case, I wouldn't waste the
money on more RAM than is necessary, at this time.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell

 

[mooky]

Again, you'll need to check with the motherboard manufacturer (or maybe
Crucial) for its maximum capacity, but I'm not at all sure that such an
old motherboard would even support a gigabyte of RAM. Even if it does,
you're not likely to see much of a performance gain, as the P-III CPU
will be a huge "bottle-neck." This being the case, I wouldn't waste the
money on more RAM than is necessary, at this time.

--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htmhttp://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell

thee maximum it can support is a gig. I do run a lot of apps at a time
on occasion and wasn't sure if I would notice a lot of difference. I
already went to crucial's site as I mentioned before. also, what do
you mean by huge "bottle-neck"...if I don't notice a difference, at
least I'll have a stick of 512 for backup

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

thee maximum it can support is a gig. I do run a lot of apps at a time
on occasion and wasn't sure if I would notice a lot of difference. I
already went to crucial's site as I mentioned before. also, what do
you mean by huge "bottle-neck"...if I don't notice a difference, at
least I'll have a stick of 512 for backup

Although running several apps at a time *seems* like it means that you
need or would benefit from more RAM, it isn't necessarily true.

Usually when people say they are running a bunch of apps at once, they
mean they have that bunch of apps *open*. But an app that's open and
not actively being used doesn't have anywhere near the same impact on
performance as one that's actively in use.

Let's say you have Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and Outlook all
open at once. Sounds like they use a lot of RAM, right?

No, wrong (usually). If, for example, you are actively editing a file
in Word, and the others are just sitting around waiting to be used,
the RAM they used to use quickly gets paged out to the page file, and
only Word needs to remain in memory. So the performance penalty of
having them all open but not in use is actually tiny.

In fact, it's rare that more that one major app is actually in use at
the same time. How much RAM you need is much more closely associated
with the *biggest* app you run, than with how many. If, for example,
you edit large photographic images with Photoshop, you can probably
benefit from having lots more RAM than most people need. Very few
people will notice any real performance improvement in XP by having
more than 512MB, *unless* they do photo or video editing.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

thee maximum it can support is a gig. I do run a lot of apps at a time
on occasion and wasn't sure if I would notice a lot of difference.

Additional RAM might help some, but how just much it'll help mostly
depends upon the specific applications you use, and how they use/release
memory. I'm afraid there's no hard and fast answer.

I
already went to crucial's site as I mentioned before.

I know, but I wasn't sure if you checked for maximum capacity, as well
as the type of RAM needed, so I wanted to clear up this point, before
you spent money on soemthing you couldn't use.

also, what do
you mean by huge "bottle-neck"...

Sorry. It's a term (alluding to a bottle's narrowed opening) used to
identify a constriction in a process that slows everything down, no
manner how fast the rest of the process might be. Let me try an
imperfect analogy:

Think of a multi-lane expressway that suddenly comes to a toll station
with only one booth manned and/or operating. No matter how fast the
traffic was flowing before it got there, and no matter how fast the
traffic might once again flow once past, that single toll booth is
creating a "bottle-neck," bringing the traffic to a near-stop as it
processes one vehicle at a time.

Your P-III CPU may act in a similar fashion as your increased RAM
provides it with more data traffic at any given time; it can only
process the data so faster, regardlees of how much more data is coming
its way.

if I don't notice a difference, at
least I'll have a stick of 512 for backup

I'm not sure what you mean by this. An additional RAM module won't act
as a "fall-over" backup or stand-in, should the other module fail.
(Although you could use it as a replacement, yes.)


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell

 

[mooky]

Although running several apps at a time *seems* like it means that you
need or would benefit from more RAM, it isn't necessarily true.

Usually when people say they are running a bunch of apps at once, they
mean they have that bunch of apps *open*. But an app that's open and
not actively being used doesn't have anywhere near the same impact on
performance as one that's actively in use.

Let's say you have Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and Outlook all
open at once. Sounds like they use a lot of RAM, right?

No, wrong (usually). If, for example, you are actively editing a file
in Word, and the others are just sitting around waiting to be used,
the RAM they used to use quickly gets paged out to the page file, and
only Word needs to remain in memory. So the performance penalty of
having them all open but not in use is actually tiny.

In fact, it's rare that more that one major app is actually in use at
the same time. How much RAM you need is much more closely associated
with the *biggest* app you run, than with how many. If, for example,
you edit large photographic images with Photoshop, you can probably
benefit from having lots more RAM than most people need. Very few
people will notice any real performance improvement in XP by having
more than 512MB, *unless* they do photo or video editing.

I do photos(Photoshop), audio(sound forge), and some video editing
with Nero....so I do need the performance boost...thanks so much for
the help.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I do photos(Photoshop), audio(sound forge), and some video editing
with Nero....so I do need the performance boost...thanks so much for
the help.

You're welcome.

Then you would seem to be someone who would benefit from more than
512MB. But again note that it's *what* you run, rather than how much,
that makes it so.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Additional RAM might help some, but how just much it'll help mostly
depends upon the specific applications you use, and how they use/release
memory. I'm afraid there's no hard and fast answer.




I know, but I wasn't sure if you checked for maximum capacity, as well
as the type of RAM needed, so I wanted to clear up this point, before
you spent money on soemthing you couldn't use.



Sorry. It's a term (alluding to a bottle's narrowed opening) used to
identify a constriction in a process that slows everything down, no
manner how fast the rest of the process might be. Let me try an
imperfect analogy:

Think of a multi-lane expressway that suddenly comes to a toll station
with only one booth manned and/or operating. No matter how fast the
traffic was flowing before it got there, and no matter how fast the
traffic might once again flow once past, that single toll booth is
creating a "bottle-neck," bringing the traffic to a near-stop as it
processes one vehicle at a time.

Your P-III CPU may act in a similar fashion as your increased RAM
provides it with more data traffic at any given time; it can only
process the data so faster, regardlees of how much more data is coming
its way.

Mooky, I'm going to disagree with Bruce here. If additional RAM does
anything for you, it will be because it reduces or eliminates paging
to the hard drive. Reading and writing to the hard drive are physical
mechanical events, and always much slower than the electronic
manipulation of data that occurs in the CPU or in RAM. For that
reason, reducing of paging will almost always provide a speed
increase, and usually a substantial one. It's the hard drive that's
the bottleneck here, not the CPU, which, even if old and slow, is
still many times faster than the drive.

 

[Unknown]

Absolutely correct. This is known as virtual memory. Even if you are NOT
running an application, but it is in memory, and you wish to run some other
program, what is in memory has to be written on the disk (saved) and the new
program loaded. This is a very good reason to keep Startup as small as
possible. I.E. Don't load it till you need it.

 

[mooky]

Absolutely correct. This is known as virtual memory. Even if you are NOT
running an application, but it is in memory, and you wish to run some other
program, what is in memory has to be written on the disk (saved) and the new
program loaded. This is a very good reason to keep Startup as small as
possible. I.E. Don't load it till you need it.

On Sun, 12 Aug 2007 11:51:32 -0600, Bruce Chambers

Mooky, I'm going to disagree with Bruce here. If additional RAM does
anything for you, it will be because it reduces or eliminates paging
to the hard drive. Reading and writing to the hard drive are physical
mechanical events, and always much slower than the electronic
manipulation of data that occurs in the CPU or in RAM. For that
reason, reducing of paging will almost always provide a speed
increase, and usually a substantial one. It's the hard drive that's
the bottleneck here, not the CPU, which, even if old and slow, is
still many times faster than the drive.

thanks for the info...I thought that it might reduce the paging size
and provide a speed increase. the Memory is about the only upgrade to
my PC I can do...I had to upgrade the hard drive a few months ago to
replace my old croaking one...even with all the stuff I have on my
drive I still have 102 gigs free...and I also put in a new dvd burner
as well...also, I said I'd have a stick of 512 for backup which did
mean a replacemet...that was only if the slot is bad and I just store
the 2nd stick until needed. Thanks again...helped me out alot.

 

[mooky]

thanks for the info...I thought that it might reduce the paging size
and provide a speed increase. the Memory is about the only upgrade to
my PC I can do...I had to upgrade the hard drive a few months ago to
replace my old croaking one...even with all the stuff I have on my
drive I still have 102 gigs free...and I also put in a new dvd burner
as well...also, I said I'd have a stick of 512 for backup which did
mean a replacemet...that was only if the slot is bad and I just store
the 2nd stick until needed. Thanks again...helped me out alot.

1 other thing I forgot...should I still keep windows to adjust the
paging file for me or should I set it to certain amounts...my guess
would be to let Windows manage it, but just wondered.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Absolutely correct. This is known as virtual memory. Even if you are NOT
running an application, but it is in memory, and you wish to run some other
program, what is in memory has to be written on the disk (saved) and the new
program loaded.

Although this is paging, it's essentially one-time paging, usually
taking only a fraction of a second, and hardly hurts at all. It's
constant paging, where what's in memory and what's in the page file
have to continually be exchanged, that's a drag on performance.

This is a very good reason to keep Startup as small as
possible. I.E. Don't load it till you need it.

I completely disagree. It hardly matters what you load. What matters
is what you are actively running. If I load a program and never use
it, it gets paged out almost immediately and stays paged out. The only
penalty is the tiny amount of time it took to page it out in the first
place.

If you automatically load a background program at startup, and that
background program stays busy doing things all the time, then yes, it
will affect your performance, because, besides using CPU cycles, it
increases paging. But load a program that does nothing until you
choose to use it, and it doesn't use the CPU and it doesn't page. For
that reason, there is no penalty associated with loading such a
program.

As I've said in these newsgroups many times, you should be concerned,
not with how *many* of these automatically-starting background
programs you run, but *which*. Some of them can hurt performance
severely, but others have no effect on performance.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Absolutely correct. This is known as virtual memory. Even if you are NOT
running an application, but it is in memory, and you wish to run some other
program, what is in memory has to be written on the disk (saved) and the new
program loaded. This is a very good reason to keep Startup as small as
possible. I.E. Don't load it till you need it.

@cable0ne.n3t> wrote:

mooky wrote:

thee maximum it can support is a gig. I do run a lot of apps at a time
on occasion and wasn't sure if I would notice a lot of difference.

Additional RAM might help some, but how just much it'll help mostly
depends upon the specific applications you use, and how they use/release
memory. I'm afraid there's no hard and fast answer.

I
already went to crucial's site as I mentioned before.

I know, but I wasn't sure if you checked for maximum capacity, as well
as the type of RAM needed, so I wanted to clear up this point, before
you spent money on soemthing you couldn't use.

also, what do
you mean by huge "bottle-neck"...

Sorry. It's a term (alluding to a bottle's narrowed opening) used to
identify a constriction in a process that slows everything down, no
manner how fast the rest of the process might be. Let me try an
imperfect analogy:

Think of a multi-lane expressway that suddenly comes to a toll station
with only one booth manned and/or operating. No matter how fast the
traffic was flowing before it got there, and no matter how fast the
traffic might once again flow once past, that single toll booth is
creating a "bottle-neck," bringing the traffic to a near-stop as it
processes one vehicle at a time.

Your P-III CPU may act in a similar fashion as your increased RAM
provides it with more data traffic at any given time; it can only
process the data so faster, regardlees of how much more data is coming
its way.

Mooky, I'm going to disagree with Bruce here. If additional RAM does
anything for you, it will be because it reduces or eliminates paging
to the hard drive. Reading and writing to the hard drive are physical
mechanical events, and always much slower than the electronic
manipulation of data that occurs in the CPU or in RAM. For that
reason, reducing of paging will almost always provide a speed
increase, and usually a substantial one. It's the hard drive that's
the bottleneck here, not the CPU, which, even if old and slow, is
still many times faster than the drive.

thanks for the info...I thought that it might reduce the paging size
and provide a speed increase.

No. What provides a speed increase is reducing the *amount* of paging
you do. Size is not relevant.


the Memory is about the only upgrade to

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

1 other thing I forgot...should I still keep windows to adjust the
paging file for me or should I set it to certain amounts...my guess
would be to let Windows manage it, but just wondered.

You can let Windows manage it. You can make some minor improvements by
managing it yourself, but only if you know what you're doing. And the
only real benefit would be that you would save a little disk space.