Upgrading memory?

Question

well i will start by saying i have a low end pc. I'll tell you the specs
intel celeron D 3.0Ghz
512Mb RAM
80Gb hard drive
ASRock P4VM800 mother board
ATI Radeon RX925C graphics card
and well thats about it. The problem is that its slowing down and i know its cuz i have only 8Gb left on my hard drive and i have 30 or 40 programs installed (i need all of them to do what i do). Now the question is that if i upgrade to 1Gb memory(well actually i have two 256Mb memory cards installed at the moment so it will be like upgrading to 1256Mb RAM) will i get the same speed as i would get as when i 1st got the computer and is it true that i need to use one that is the same brand as the other in order for it to function properly(the brands im using is kingston memory) and dont say that i may have viruses on my computer cuz im using kaspersky 7 something i cant seen to remember

Answer 1

Upgrading your RAM will speed things up about 10%. The real bottleneck is your intel celeron D 3.0Ghz AND low hard disk space. Google for: Space Monger software - to identify HDD problems.

Want real speed? BACKUP and Re-install Windows. Over time, Windows suffers from "Bit Rot", malware and Registry anomalies, so the hard drive should be formatted and do a Clean install of Windows, and repeat about every 6 months.

You should see an additional 10 - 50% boost. Really.

Answer 2

Your motherboard supports Dual Channel Memory and that is why you should balance the amount of RAM in each ram slot meaning that if you want 1GB of RAM then you should get two 512 GB memory sticks. It is not required that identical modules be used, but this is often recommended for best compatibility for dual channel operation. I would actually even recommend that you go for two 1GB memory sticks for a total of 2 GB of RAM if you can afford it.

As to whether or not the speed will be the same as you first got your computer, it really depends. Your computer will always be as fast as its slowest component. If your harddisk is full and has a lot of memory resident programs then it might not be has fast as a computer with an empty harddisk and no memory resident programs.

Overall, you will notice a large performance increase. However, I can not be sure if it will be as fast as before because it depends on how much stuff you are running now compared to what it had when it was new.

Answer 3

You dont need the same brand, but you need the same type if you have 4 dimm slots.

You can run a single dimm, so if you only have 2 slots be prepared to throw away the 2 x 256mb sticks.

Ram is pretty cheap, and you would feel a much bigger boost in pefromance with more ram, however, you drive is nearing capacity, and if you have so many installed programs hogging system resources then no, your system wont feel as fast as new to you.

Suggest some housekeeping is in order, delete some apps you dont use, clean the system, defrag etc.

Oh and remember, if you add 2gbs of ram your swap file will increase on your hard drive taking another 1.5gb of disk space.

Answer 4

Check how much available RAM you have by pressing CTRL+Shift+Esc to open Task Manager. Go to the Performance tab and look at Available Physical Memory. If you have under 100,000 or so, get more RAM. You will also want to perform a defrag (if you can) and maybe get a larger hard drive as well.

Have you checked for spyware and not just viruses? If not, use the following to make sure you don't have any:
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/products/ad_aware_free.php
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/mirrors/index.html

Answer 5

Go to crucial.com, look up or let them scan your PC. They will tell you what RAM you have, how much and what kind of memory your system can handle.
Before you install, back up your sytem, and use a registry cleaner (free ones available at pcworld.com).
Uninstall anything you don't use, run the cleaner, defrag the system. Install the memory. That should do it.

Answer 6

No your computer is not so low end I would have another hard drive installed. your memory can be of different brand name but it has to be the same type in frequency (MHz) read the label on the stick for the frequency.

Answer 7

512 for your PC is quite low...today most of us have 2Gb...it will defenetly improve performace because the swap file will not be used so often if u have a big enough RAM.

about that brand thing..it is not true...the only thing that matters is RAM maximum clock rate and RAM size.if u are planing on using more than one module i suggest having them the same size.