
How To Speed Up My Computer: Add RAM
September 29, 2009Top Ten Ways On How To Speed Up My Computer
How To speed Up Your Computer
#7- Add RAM To Your Computer
U
p to a point, adding RAM (random access memory) will normally cause your computer to feel faster on certain types of programs. RAM is important because of an operating system component called the virtual memory manager (VMM).
When you run a program such as a word processor or an Internet browser, the microprocessor in your computer pulls the executable file off the hard disk and loads it into RAM. In the case of a big program like Microsoft Word or Excel, the EXE consumes about 5 megabytes. The microprocessor also pulls in a number of shared DLLs (dynamic link libraries) — shared pieces of code used by multiple applications. The DLLs might total 20 or 30 megabytes. Then the microprocessor loads in the data files you want to look at, which might total several megabytes if you are looking at several documents or browsing a page with a lot of graphics. So a normal application needs between 10 and 30 megabytes of RAM space to run. On my machine, at any given time I might have the following applications running:
* A word processor
* A spreadsheet
* A DOS prompt
* An e-mail program
* A drawing program
* Three or four browser windows
* A fax program
* A Telnet session
Besides all of those applications, the operating system itself is taking up a good bit of space. Those programs together might need 100 to 150 megabytes of RAM, but my computer only has 64 megabytes of RAM installed.
For some of you that is a lot of technical jargon and may not mean a whole lot. I will put it a little bit easier to understand.
Basically every program you open up, is using RAM. If you have 128MB of RAM on your computer but your using 200MB your gonna run very slow. Upgrading RAM is a fairly inexpensive way to “speed up my computer”.
To check your RAM…
1. Go to start and click, then right click my computer and select properties.
2.Select the General Tab and you will get a screen that looks like this.
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This screen will tell you how much RAM you have.
Tip) To view how much RAM you are using right now hit Control ALT Delete to bring up task manager and click the processes tab. This will tell you how many processes you are using and how much memory each is using.
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Step Six: Use MSCONFIG To Make Your Computer Boot Up Faster
Step Eight: Get An External Hard drive
Speed Up Computer at thehowtohut.com.

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