Do I need more RAM for my computer?

Question

http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/4828/kakary2.jpg

I don't know anything about these things -- do I need more RAM? Certain programs are running pretty slowly, and are crashing pretty tremendously.

Answer 1

I would upgrade to 2 gigs of ram if I were you.

Answer 2

Thanks for supplying the info. it really does help. Laptops cheat a little (?) by using onboard ram to run the video card etc. If you have a 128meg 3d card, your available RAM is closer to 850 meg, thewn take away all the other stuff. You probably have 750 meg at best, but that should be fine for the system and the processor. Slow computers usually have the following problems (in order):

Registry errors: Go to www.ccleaner.com, download and run
Spyware: Go to http://www.safer-networking.org/ download and run
Norton Antivirus: Give it the flick and load AVG. it's much less demanding on resources. Go to: http://www.download.com/AVG-Anti-Virus-Free-Edition/3000-2239_4-10761481.html?tag=pop.software download and run
Replace the Norton Firewall with http://www.download.com/Sunbelt-Kerio-Personal-Firewall/3000-10435_4-10543979.html?tag=lst-0-1
It says it costs money, but after 30 days it still works perfectly, but with fewer unnecessary features.
Your Startup procedure probably needs a workover, but i don't recommend it unless you know what you're doing.
Have a look at all the icons on the bottom right. More than 5 is too many, but Dell loves them!
Finally, you may like to do a defrag. Make sure your antivirus program is turned off. Regardless of what all the geeks who answer your post say, doing a defrag will offer little or no improvement to "overall" speed.

All the software I've suggested is FREE.

Answer 3

It never hurts to have more RAM.

It also never hurts to run a spyware scan, a virus scan, defragment your hard drive, clear out your cookies and all that, and see if there are any big files you can delete. To be honest I've never noticed a real difference in performance after a defrag, but if you run everything overnight you might as well try it. Can't hurt.

I'd recommend using Ad-Aware for spyware scans. I'm really responsible with my computer but the first time I got it, after running it, I deleted 200 or so spyware files. Scan for negligible entries, too

If more RAM and a good (metaphorical) scrubbing doesn't help you, you're beyond what I can help with.

Answer 4

more ram is never going to hurt, people above are dumb, some people like to run numerous programs at the same time, the more ram you have the smoother these programs will run, or you can stick with 1g and run notepad only all day, that program should run smooooooooth!

Answer 5

Maybe your computer is heavily fragmented. I have 1 GB of ram and it's working great. It hasn't crashed since ever. I have another computer which has like 350 MB of ram and it doesn't crash either (but I just run like one program on it)

Answer 6

You have 1 gig of RAM using XP.
This is enough for almost anything except big Photoshop files and games.
If you are doing other stuff and it is slow and crashing, look for viruses, trojans and spyware.
That said, more RAM is always nice. Go to www.crucial.com to see what your pc wants for an upgrade.

Answer 7

I have had no probs since changing to 1gb ram and better processor- but try defragging and get rid of unwanted stuff on HD - old programs never used etc

Answer 8

Since you are running XP no. What you should have done is a hardware diagnostic to test your hard-drive to make sure it is reading properly. If it passes, then you will have to back-up your data and reload the OS.

Answer 9

No you shouldn't. It just sounds like it needs a good system reinstall or cleaning.

Answer 10

Run disk defragmenter to clean up your hard drive. i have a media center and that happens a lot with my computer.