Giving your computer more oomph

[Analoguesat]

Not a guide as such but some suggestions for improving the performance of your computer. (Apologies Rolf if Ive put this in the wrong section but I figured it was about the best place for it)

I know a lot of folk here do a lot of image manipulation - if you hear the hard drive churning a lot of the time whilst you are working your computer may be low on RAM memory. RAM is the place where the computer "thinks" when its working - if its got insufficient in then it has to page information on and off the hard drive which is comparitavely slow to do..

For instance I have a tv card in my Dell desktop computer for my satellite tv hobby. My computer had 1GB of RAM in it, but the tv card software was taking almost 5 minutes to start up when I clicked on the icon on the desktop. I installed an additional 2GB and now the same programme starts up in 30 seconds! Nothing else has changed in the computer.

Its easy to find how your computer is currently set up. Go to Memory upgrades, flash media, and usb storage at Crucial.com and let their tool scan your computer. You get a choice of compatible upgrades offered as well. The prices of the memory is about the cheapest I know - and a useful site if you want cheap Compact Flash cards, memory sticks, camera memory cards etc.

BE WARNED. A memory swap in most computers is dead easy, BUT you have to be confident in what you are doing, and take some precautions. (Most times its a case of popping the external case off the computer and clipping the memory into the slots on the main board. - It will only fit in one place but you need to take anti static precautions. For laptops most of the time you unscrew one of the small panels on the bottom of the laptop and do a straight clip in)

I can supply some photos for a typical system if anyone is interested, but PLEASE - if you arent happy doing some basic disassembly DONT try it - pay your local computer shop 20 quid or so to do it!!

[rolf]

Spot on Ross, lack of RAM is one of the main causes of sluggish performance, many newish computers are supplied with only minimal RAM.

[Analoguesat]

Yup - until fairly recently most new boxes were shipping with 0.5GB (512MB) RAM memory. Windows XP needs that just to run properly!

If you have Vista on your computer then it needs 1GB RAM to run with all the whistles and bells turned on, so to run your programmes properly you need far more

[rolf]

I recently upgraded my main PC to 4GB of RAM, made a big difference.

[dig deep]

4GB is what You need if You do a lot of art stuff, working with pics and music

Otherwise it´s a little bit of overkill as 2GB and Vista is OK.

My MB won´t take more than 4GB but there is an option - using a usb stick.

They are really cheap today, got an 8GB for 10£ and also 4GB for less than a fiver.

Just connect them and let Vista use tham as extra memory. Gives a Turbo to any old computer

[digidark]

Interesting article Ross but how do you convince a computer to use a memory stick as RAM.

It sounds like you may have to play around in the DOS area (shaking all over at the thought)

[Analoguesat]

It can be done in Vista, but not in any of the earlier operating systems.

Its not going to be as fast as accessing proper ram as the usb interface is far slower than accessing ram memory.

Theres a basic tutorial here:

_http://www.reviewsaurus.com/tips-tricks/windows-vista-use-your-flash-drive-as-ram/

[topper]

I have to say Ross I have used them 3 times now and they really are a good helpful company and offer a 30 day money back guarantee. Just after you started this thread in November I upgraded my Dell GX620 with twin pentium 4 processors to 4GB memory and it absolutely flies now.