How to free up ram?

Question

Out of 960 mb of ram installed I only have 570 mb of it. Does defragment help a lot? I already had 512mb ram and bought a another 512mb ram.

Dont suggest to buy more ram.

Answer 1

You may not need more RAM if you:

Don't use wallpaper and screensavers - many users are not aware of how much RAM is used by wallpaper and/or a screensaver full of graphics. They run in the background and consume memory. (I have only 512mb RAM, run multiple programs simultaneously, and have set my wallpaper and screensaver to blank.)

- How many programs do you load at startup? Maybe you should check it out and ensure you are running just what you need on a daily basis. For anything else you can wait a minute until it loads.
To do this: cl Start, cl Settings, cl Taskbar and Start Menu.
cl Start Menu, cl Customize, cl Remove.
cl the icon for the program you wish to remove
then cl Remove.
There is also a “Disable All” button.
This will prevent the program from loading at startup, but will not remove the program from the hard disk.

When you are working in a large file, save frequently to restore full memory access. (Your work remains in memory until you “save” it to disk.)

Did you run an error check? Open My Computer,
Right-cl on C:, Select Properties, Tools – Run an Error Check ( checkmark “check all and fix); then run a Defrag

Are you using Yahoo Toolbar? Run a full Norton Antispy.

From IE, click Tools, Internet Options
delete cookies
delete files (offline files)
clear history (set days to save to 0 if you want)
click o.k., and Restart

click Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools – run Disk Cleanup

click Start, Run ipconfig renew (type ipconfig space renew)

All these things should be done regularly. The more frequently they are run, the less time they take.
Note: I don’t do games – games and videos are mostly graphics which create large files.

If all these things don’t help, you should consider getting more memory.
A good web site to visit: http://www.theonlinefamily.net/organize/spring_clean_computer/index.html

Answer 2

Freeing up ram is best done when one understands what it is that they are freeing up. RAM is a volatile storage media that maintains it's data thru the constant flow of static electricity that singals on/off (I/O) switches. Defragmenting your hard disk drive will not free up available memory. It will improve over all speed though.

To free up active memory, I'd run MSCONFIG from START/RUN and I would access the startup items and kill everything except for my internet security or Antivirus software. If you have 3rd party software that MUST be loaded inorder to make various hardware work, leave those programs in startup.

CCLEANER is another great tool for this and more.. It's available on my site. http://downloads.comstar-computers.com

Send me a list of your startup items and I will tell you what each one does and if it is needed upon bootup.

Answer 3

OR... you could do it the easy way like I do:

Use a little software utility that will defrag and clean up your unused (stuck) RAM. FreeRAM XP Pro 1.5 http://www.download.com/FreeRAM-XP-Pro/3000-2086_4-10516960.html?tag=lst-0-3

Works great for freeing up memory that gets allocated and never released. It will also monitor in the system tray and tell you when you're using up all your memory and how much you have free at any given time.

And... for future... if you're running Windows XP, it will allocate as much RAM as it possibly can if you have it (up to about 400 meg sometimes) while it just sits there running the normal system processes. That's just how it rolls...

Answer 4

Defragmenting is diffrent it basicly puts all the "fragments" of a file in one spot for faster reading...

i;d say you should be happy with the 570, windows is a memory hog and the more memory you have the more windows tries to use...]

Answer 5

In order to free up ram you have to close programs that are running on the background and you don't need them to run all the time.In order to close some of these programs press Start>run then type msconfig, in the window that pops up go to the startup tab and from the list uncheck programs that you don't want them to run.( be careful don't uncheck programs that are system32 and generally programs that you do not know what they are for, just those you are sure).
Good luck...

Answer 6

What Really Slows Windows Down
http://www.thepcspy.com/articles/other/what_really_slows_windows_down/5

Read Windows XP Super Tweaks and stop un-necessary xp services.
http://spywarekiller.hyperboards.com/index.php?action=view_topic&topic_id=35&start=1

Answer 7

No, this just means that you have 570 free, the difference is in use. (I envy you, my pc has 512, but only 110 is free, and it is really slow)

Also, diskdefrag wont help, as it only works on harddrives.

Answer 8

delete any and all unwanted or unused programs. Anything you might not want. Then go to www.download .com and download Abexo registery cleaner and run it. this will help some.

Answer 9

why not suggest to buy more ram???? That isn't much at all.!!!