Hard disk or RAM??

Question

My PC is running slow. I need to run Flash MX, Dreamweaver, Corel and phtoshop on it as I am a designer. Now, its an old
P3 machine, (assembled). Shd I add 40 GB to my existing 80 GB?
Will that definitely improve de speed? Or shd I get an additional
RAM, as rt now it has only 256 RAM?

Thanks everybody.

Answer 1

RAM, get RAM!

I really would recommend a MINIMUM of 1gb of ram for those programs.

They eat memory like mad.

The HDD memory will only be used when you save your files.

the ram is used by the software during runtime. So the more the better as the software can store more of its data in faster memory . rather than HDD ( Slow )

Answer 2

The three simplest and least expensive ways to improve system performance are 1) defragment your hard drive, 2) increase the amount of memory (RAM) installed in the computer, and 3) get a larger hard drive. Operating systems like Windows come with utilities that defragment drives by moving the pieces of files that are scattered all over the drive so they occupy consecutive clusters on the drive. Defragging utilities should be run on a regular basis, say every month or two so the problem doesn't get out of hand. If your drive has never been defragmented, doing it now will definitely be an overnight task.

256 MB of memory is probably inadequate for all the software you're running, especially if several programs are running concurrently. Every time you switch from one program to another, Windows has to write and read from its swap file. More memory means Windows will use the swap file less. You can never have too much RAM.

If your hard drive is almost full, back up data files from older projects that you aren't currently working on and and delete them from the drive. Consider getting an external hard drive to back up all your data and to archive the files that you need to keep but aren't currently using.

Answer 3

Go to start menu/run
type msconfig
select startup
you will now see all the programs that start running when your computer starts up.
If you have a number of programs installed, some of them might be running as soon as your computer is started up.
They automatically get memory (RAM)allocated to them.
This will leave you with less available memory.
If you know how to do it you could de-select some of the items in the Startup , that is items that dont need to be on always.
If you dont know how to do it have someone who know help you.
If at all you goof-up, dont worry when you re-start the computer you will get a pop-up warning, which helps you reset the whole thing to the default setting.
De-selecting items from the startup will free quite a bit of memory, which should make it possible to run the programs that you want without any new hardware addons.

Answer 4

Well ! you should have a balance of both RAM and HDD, processor itself will not create problems to run applications, a slower processor only means the time taken to process a job will be more than the faster one,

If you have enough space left on HDD lets say a min 10GB at the minimum then worry about buying only the RAM for now, you may need a 1GB RAM(check if your Mother board supports 1GB -usally it should and the number of slots you have left more for additonal RAM)

If you are running out of space on HDD then you should think uprading that too,

Hope it helps

Answer 5

My dear Lady, Harddisk is for space, and RAM is for performance. Adding a new HDD will do nothing provided you are not talking of adding SCSI one. Increase your system RAM to the maximum supported by your motherboard and see how your system does a Rock n Roll.

The softwares you want to run requires a good Graphics Card also. Try upgrading your Graphics Card.

Best of Luck.

Answer 6

RAM is definitely the way to go, and the processor if possible.

however, all these people saying the hard drive will have no effect on speed are wrong, as the larger your hard drive is, the larger your page file can be, therefore increasing the overall speed of your computer

Answer 7

you could upgrade the computer to more memory space but i feel that the slow speed is not due to the 80GB harddisk or the 256MB RAM (which is too good. )
The problem lies with your motherboard. GO for a Pentium 4 HT or better still INTEL CORE DUO.
the speed of a computer is mainly governed by the processing speed of its motherboard.

Answer 8

hi,

Listen..all speed of computer depends on RAM and processor. U must have to add 256MB ram for ur work. Coz u r using a P3 machine. Hard disk is no matter. moreover u have to take a look about the Motherboard supporst the RAM(u want to buy) or not.

take care...

Answer 9

keep only those programs running that you need. Close down others. use registry cleaning softwares like ccleaner and regscrubxp to remove junk.

http://yanswers.blogspot.com/2006/10/pc-running-slow.html

http://bestofrest.blogspot.com/2006/11/regscrubxp-registry-cleaner.html

http://bestofrest.blogspot.com/2006/11/ccleaner.html

Apart from that get that additional 256MB of RAM. Getting a larger hard disk is not the answer to your problem.

Answer 10

The hard disk is just a storage device. It doesn't improve the speed. You should get additional Ram. Some Static ram would be good also.

What's your processor speed??