should I upgrade my ram?

[Chekhonte]

I have a really old 1.1ghz computer with 512mb of really old slow ram. I'm getting irked at my computers sluggish speeds when oppening web browsers and files and even transfering things to my portable player. I don't however have the resources to get a whole new computer. I can get a stick of 512mb of ram thats clocked at 633mhz for 39.99 at circuit city. Will I notice any differnce in my computers preformance or will I just have to save for a new computer? Thanks for any help, aaron.

[mirumu]

I can't tell for sure but is that 633Mhz RAM actually compatible with your computer? Most 1.1Ghz computers would used either PC-133 RAM or DDR RAM (usually 400Mhz or less). Most 633Mhz RAM is DDR2 RAM and will not work unless you have a recent motherboard which I'd say is unlikely if you have a 1.1Ghz processor. DDR2 won't even plug into an older motherboard.

As to whether or not more RAM would help your PC's problems, you really need to investigate as to where the bottleneck is. The most simple way would be to bring up Task Manager (I'm assuming you're running Windows) and watch the CPU usage and memory usage graphs while you try using the computer as you would normally until you run into the speed issues. If the RAM usage goes substantially above 512MB (Say above 600MB or more) then more RAM would noticeably help. If you aren't even using 512MB then more RAM won't help at all. If the CPU usage sits on 100% then you really need a faster CPU (probably simplest to get a new computer). If neither graph goes that high and yet the computer is still slow then the culprit lies elsewhere. It could be Windows itself or a slow hard drive and/or graphics card. In this situation I'd probably advise looking at a newer PC since the money you might spend resolving these problems won't gain you much performance for a 1.1Ghz machine anyway. Hope this helps.

[Dusty Chalk]

In all likelihood, it won't be compatible. Even so, it's probably not your main problem. The combination of CPU speed, bus speed, and other factors dictate your overall system speed.

I just bought a new computer for US$250 (refurbished Dell Optiplex GX260), you sure you can't afford that? In only had 1/2 G of RAM, but it was still noticeably faster. I plan on getting 4G more at a later date (possibly this weekend).

If you can't even afford that, I would do this: get a new hard drive (40G is probably enough), and rebuild your OS. It saves you the trouble of defragging your hard drive and fine-tuning all your software. First thing after you do that -- before you even run windows update -- is increase your swap space to as much as you can afford.

I couldn't do it -- didn't know where all the software was, so I did both -- I reinstalled my OS (switched to linux) and bought the new computer, and the combination is great. The Windows machine has never been on the internet, I save it for all the Windows exclusive stuff, and the linux machine is for email and browsing and downloading only. The only bad thing was that I couldn't use my new widescreen monitor on the linux machine.

[Chekhonte]

very good to know. I won't be getting any new ram soon. looks like it's time to start saving for a new computer.

Do you know any good recources for finding machines on a budget?

[Dusty Chalk]

I got mine from Microcenter, which I believe do mail-order. Let us know when you have a couple hundred, because prices fluctuate wildly. Their regular price for the GX270 is US$299. Let's see if this works (it should be a list of their desktops in price order, starting at their cheapest).

You should also check pricewatch, though I think they only do parts.

I also like to watch the Dell refurb site, but now you're getting into the US$1K range.

[philodox]

I got a nice computer for my aunt recently from Dell. Sempron processor, 1GB of memory, onboard nvidia graphics, msworks package with word, 19" LCD, 'speakers', laserjet printer... came out to $850CDN. And that is including PST, GST and shipping.

[mirumu]

If you can't even afford that, I would do this: get a new hard drive (40G is probably enough), and rebuild your OS. It saves you the trouble of defragging your hard drive and fine-tuning all your software. First thing after you do that -- before you even run windows update -- is increase your swap space to as much as you can afford.

Increasing swap won't speed anything up though if he's actually using a lot of memory, the disc is much, much slower than real RAM. The general rule I've found seems to be that if you're using more RAM+swap than one and a half times the physical RAM everything just really starts to crawl. Well that's on Windows anyway, Linux and MacOS X memory management is rather different and more swap can often be a big help, especially on Linux. But yes, like you say a fresh OS on a new HD can often make a big difference.

I couldn't do it -- didn't know where all the software was, so I did both -- I reinstalled my OS (switched to linux) and bought the new computer, and the combination is great. The Windows machine has never been on the internet, I save it for all the Windows exclusive stuff, and the linux machine is for email and browsing and downloading only. The only bad thing was that I couldn't use my new widescreen monitor on the linux machine.

Yeah, Linux is very fast on even a modest computer and is ideal for email, web browsing, etc. I'm surprised your widescreen display doesn't work with Linux. If it's just configuration I'm sure it could be made to work but I certainly wouldn't blame you for not wanting to mess around with the X11 configuration. I've lost many hours over the years tinkering with those things.

[Dusty Chalk]

I was only telling to increase swap first because then it -- theoretically anyway -- should be on a contiguous piece of the hard drive, not that it in itself is speeding effect. Heck, I've even allocated a separate partition for the swap before. Not having your swap file fragged is the speeding effect. There are lots of little hints like this (it's supposed to be some even multiple of your swap plus 12K? ...or something like that), one should find a list of all of those before one rebuilds one's system. Having all your operating system and non-volatile program files in a separate partition is another one. That kind of thing. But the swap thing first is, to me, crucial, hence why I mentioned it.

Oh, and why == lazy. Was still going to work on it, and probably still will, but just a little bit overwhelmed right now. I had got to the point where I needed to download all the source for the kernel because the driver needed to recompile it, and that was at 2 in the morning, so I said, "fuck it...for now". And just never got back around to it.

[mirumu]

I was only telling to increase swap first because then it -- theoretically anyway -- should be on a contiguous piece of the hard drive, not that it in itself is speeding effect. Heck, I've even allocated a separate partition for the swap before. Not having your swap file fragged is the speeding effect. There are lots of little hints like this (it's supposed to be some even multiple of your swap plus 12K? ...or something like that), one should find a list of all of those before one rebuilds one's system. Having all your operating system and non-volatile program files in a separate partition is another one. That kind of thing. But the swap thing first is, to me, crucial, hence why I mentioned it.

That's true, having it contiguous is a good idea although defragging may move it to less optimal places at a later date (although still contiguous of course). Unfortunately the best sizes to use tends to change over time when the VM implementation changes. Generally speaking if you really want to optimise swap you put it on a separate partition like you say and preferably make it on the inner sectors of the disc which are fastest. No surprise that most Linux installs want to do things this way by default. It's also best to have it on a drive that you don't use, preferably on a different IDE/SATA channel. That way it's not competing for bandwidth with other files accesses on the disc. The amount of swap required isn't as important as it used to be though given growing memory sizes. I'm actually starting to see machines set up without any swap (I'm a sys admin in my day job). Best way to go if you have the RAM to burn but it's certainly not the case for everyone.

Oh, and why == lazy. Was still going to work on it, and probably still will, but just a little bit overwhelmed right now. I had got to the point where I needed to download all the source for the kernel because the driver needed to recompile it, and that was at 2 in the morning, so I said, "fuck it...for now". And just never got back around to it.

Heh, fair enough. Getting the kernel source can actually be a pain at times these days. If I recall correct Ubuntu doesn't have kernel source as a package, just the stub version for compiling drivers. Last time I had to build a kernel it at work on an Ubuntu box I had to get the bz archive from kernel.org and do it all manually. Such a pain!

[Chekhonte]

I always forget about linux for some reason. Although my portable player isn't compatable with linux I could use it for most anything else including foobar. When I get to my real home later this month I think I'll give it a go. Thanks for all your help, it's greatly appreciated.