how do i increase physical memory on my pc?

Question

i need to increase virtural memory but the bust way to do that is to increase physical memory. does that mean getting a new hard disk?

Answer 1

Let's define some terms first, then answer your question.
1. Physical memory: This is Random Access Memory, or RAM. RAM is electronic "chips" that hold bits of data for a short term, only when the PC is on. When you turn the PC off, RAM is cleared. You may hear of RAM decribed by amount such as 512 MegaBites, or 1 GigaByte.

2. Hard Drive - This is a device that acts somewhat like a very large capacity floppy disk drive. The hard drive contains a solid disk t that spins very rapidly. Magnetic pickups are placed very close to the surface of the rotating disk on arms that resemble a tone arm of a record player (do you remember record players :). Hard drives are considered "permanent storage". They retain data even when the PC is off. Your Operating System, Applications, and data are stored on the hard disk. Modern hard drives come in capacities from 40 to several hundred GigaBytes.

3. Virtual Memory - Virtual memory is a space on the hard drive that is reserved for use as a temporary storage area that "virtually" increases the amount of RAM.

Lets take an example so you'll see how all this is related. When you open a word processing document on your PC, the computer looks in your hard drive for the application program, such as Word, and the document that you have saved there. It copes both the document and the associated application to RAM, where the computer can use it. When you save and close the program, the newly changed document is transfered back to the hard drive. While the file is opened, your computer's RAM may become "filled". To allow the PC to continue working, some of the data in RAM is transferred to the special area in the hard drive called Virtual Memory, and the PC treats this area just as it does RAM.

Now, if your hard drive is almost full of data, there will not be enough area left over for virutal memory to work. So if you are running out of virtual memory, it may be because you hard drive is full. If you increase the amount of RAM, you will still have a virtual memory issue due to lack of storage space on the hard drive.

Replacing a hard drive will require the re-installation of you operating system, all your applications, and moving all your data to the new drive. If you have never tried this before, I recommend you either hire a qualified tech to do this for you, or get a trusted and experienced friend to help you out.

Answer 2

How To Increase Physical Memory

Answer 3

No, it means that you have to increase your RAM. If you want to increase you memory with increasing you hard space, you will not increase your SPEED! Yes speed is very important next to the memory space. So you must increase your RAM capacity not your hard. The best choice if your Mainboard supports that is DDR3 Dual Chanel.

Answer 4

Physical memory is the RAM. you buy a stick or two, (compatible with your system board and plug it in)
but if youre talking about more space to store stuff.
yup, buy a new high cap hdd and just put it in.
easy as pie.
piece of cake.


mmmmm anyone have brownies?

Answer 5

No, physical memory is your RAM. Buy some at Crucial.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_access_memory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_memory

Answer 6

buy another stick or ram, 256 or 512mb will be good

Answer 7

Buy more RAM.