Should I get more memory?

from WinCustomize Forums
I have a Dell Inspiron XPS (the big fat 500lb one) with a P4 3.4 GHz, 1GB RAM and blah blah blah. At any given time I have 66 processes running (I can account for all of them; no viruses or spyware or anything) and it seems that if I'm downloading some torrents or using Photoshop, the computer lags and pauses for a few seconds when switching from program to program.
I think its because of lack of physical memory. My paging file is 1.5GB, and is usually at 500-600MB, and my physical memory is usually at 50-56%. Is this a typical amount, or do I need more memory? Or a faster Hard drive? Or something I'm missing? Thanks.

-Adam
Thinkbulb.com
6,444 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
actually you may consider reducing your paging file slightly so that your computer uses your RAM more often instead of the paging file. RAM is much much faster than anything coming from the hard disk, so you want to use it as much as possible. and since your physical memory is usually only half-used, you're safe reducing the paging file. i have 1GB of memory in my inspiron 9100, and i have my page file also set at 1GB. you may even consider turning off the paging file all together. something you should also try is going to START > RUN > and type 'msconfig'. choose the Selective Startup option, and then the Startup tab. this is a list of every program that loads with windows. personally, i have 49 entries, only 14 of which i allow to start up. the only things i allow are my antivirus, anti-spyware, firewall, and Object Desktop programs. this will significantly reduce your startup time, and free up a lot of your physical memory.

but photoshop is a heavy program, and is going to slow things down in pretty much any setup. if you use it a lot, you may consider more ram anyway. and with bittorrent, if you've got a couple large downloads going with many connections, you may notice a slowdown where your system needs memory to manage the connections for each peer.

the only problem with upgrading is that you should check to see if your 1GB of RAM is made up of two 512MB chips (most common from the manufacturer), or one 1GB chip. if it's the former, you're gonna end up spending more to upgrade because you'll have to take out at least one of the chips.
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Or you could get one of them Flash drives that's come on the market recently and use that as your scratchdisk. That's something I'd really like to do.
WindowBlinds - Free yourself of the default settings, customize your desktop.
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
You could also put your newly reduced in size page file on a second drive, and putting all pictures on the second drive also. With a gig of memory, I don't even use a page file. And with the page file and my music and pictures on the second hard drive, there is hardly any lag in transfer or access as the pipeline is not over the same IDE cable as the core OS.
Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Good idea, but since I just have a laptop, I only have one hard drive. I could partition my drive, but I don't think that would work. Unless it would. I don't know.



-Adam

Thinkbulb.com
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
No that wouldn't work, same highway. But you can tone down the page file, or dismiss it entirely with the 1 gig you have. There are also little tweaks here and there you can do to speed up the machine.
Winguides has a registry guide:
Link

Check out TweakXP, all kinds of tips and tricks:

Link


Sorry Adamness, I neglected to think when reading the "Inspirion" name. BlackViper.com has a good set of tips/tweaks but is under construction as yet.

Hope this helps you out.

If you don't already have it, get some antispyware.
Spybot S&D: Link
AdAware: Link
Microsoft AntiSpyware Beta: Link

All of these are free. SpyBot S&D you have the option of realtime resident protection (use it IMO). AdAware is free but, you don't get the realtime protection unless you buy it. Get it, run it manually along with one of the other two listed here. MS antispyware has realtime protection, but doesn't get EVERYTHING. I use all three, only have problems when I get to a site that both MS and Spybot don't like at the same time, then I get a little lag time. Ohterwise, recommended highly.
Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
... photoshop lag is normal for any system; especially if you've got a full poster size document open (ever check out the size of some of those photoshop files? I've got ones that are over 100mb; think about loading all of that into your memory ), so it's probably really not your hardware problem or a spyware problem. Actually, some of the slowdown might just be windows itself.

But yea, if you want to squeeze out some more speed from your computer, check out tweakxp.com for specific tweaks for certain areas of your system.