[n8cwr]

I have been running my system for over a year with 1 gig of memory. Just recently I installed 2 extra gigs of memory now with a total of 3 gigs. I cant see a difference at all, whats going on. Can someone please help.
Thank you.
PS Before I found this board I have asked this on 2 other forums with no help yet.

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Hello n8cwr and welcome to Geeks To Go

Just recently I installed 2 extra gigs of memory now with a total of 3 gigs. I cant see a difference at all

In theory, going from 1gb to 3gb you should see some difference in performance, example applications opening and closing faster, better for games and so on. Does all 3gb show up in the bios? to get into the bios press F2 or delete upon bootup where you should get access to the bios.

If you are unable to do that then you can download a small program called WinAudit and this will tell you how much ram is installed.

If you are just using your computer for general internet use and don't need to open alot of programs at once you may not notice a big difference in performance.

Regards

[wizzy2k5]

Hello n8cwr and welcome to Geeks To Go

Just recently I installed 2 extra gigs of memory now with a total of 3 gigs. I cant see a difference at all

In theory, going from 1gb to 3gb you should see some difference in performance, example applications opening and closing faster, better for games and so on. Does all 3gb show up in the bios? to get into the bios press F2 or delete upon bootup where you should get access to the bios.

If you are unable to do that then you can download a small program called WinAudit and this will tell you how much ram is installed.

If you are just using your computer for general internet use and don't need to open alot of programs at once you may not notice a big difference in performance.

Regards

[n8cwr]

Hello I have CPUZ installed and it says 3 gig of ram and also in device manager it went from 1 gig to 3 when I installed the 2 new sticks. I have Adobe 3, 5, 7, 8, and elements and do a lot of painting and have a bunch of programs opened at the same time sometimes and I still dont see anything at all in speed. I have Windows Live One Care Virus and firewall software installed that I purchased and run everyday Adware, spyware, Regcure, you name it and there are no viruses, or spyware on my system according to those programs.
I dont know what going on.
Thank you sir for your responce.
n8cwr

[wizzy2k5]

I purchased Regcure

Hello n8cwr

Just my personal opinion here on registry cleaners, you might want to stay away from them as they can cause more problems then they actually fix I would like to show you a quote from an expert here on the forum about registry cleaners.

"There are a few misunderstandings about the Registry. People seem to think that cleaning the Registry will make the Registry smaller and easier managable. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. What you are doing is create miniature gaps in the Registry's on-disc file. These gaps will be reused by new data to be inserted in the Registry. End result of this action is that the Registry becomes fragmented. Searching data in a fragmented file (be it a database on a network server or a user's Registry) is way slower than an optimized file. In short the only way to speed up handling of the Registry (and even that is marginal) is by completely rewriting the file(s).

Therefore the only program I used on Windows machines was Registry Compressor who would do that. Unfortunately the program has been sold to another company and guess what they incorporated in it!!!! Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A Registry cleaner. *groan!!!!!!!!!!*

Cleaning the Registry is a difficult thing for someone who knows what he's doing as programmers can put anything they want in the Registry. If an unexperienced person is going to take a look at the Registry and based on a program is going to delete things.... Recipe for disaster.

Trust me the perceived benefits of cleaning a Registry is marginally (if at all) noticeable."

Now getting back to you problem, I can say that you have 3gb installed so what I would like you to do is run some memory tests just incase the memory isn't performing aswell as it should, there is a program called Memtest and there is a link to it in my signature below

Please run the the memory tests and let us know the outcome

Regards

Edited by wizzy2k5, 21 December 2008 - 09:15 AM.

[n8cwr]

Hi Wizzy wow didn't know that, really appreciate your help I uninstalled my registry cleaner. I also found out I have dual channels and another person told me to take out 1 stick or buy 1 more. So I left the first stick in took out the one beside it and left the 3rd one in now I am running 2 gigs of memory and I can see the difference. I also went into bios and checked it out there and it said I was running 2 gig of memory, then I over clocked the cpu by 5% and it jumped up to 2800 and I also set it to turbo now its seems to be flying. The temp is holding at around 39 to 40 degrees on the cpu.
Thanks again for all your help and hope you have a Merry Christmas.
Calvin

[Broni]

IMHO, anything over 1GB of RAM in XP is a waste of money, because it won't make any visible difference in computer performance.
Same number for Vista would be 2GB, with maybe slight improvement, if you have 3GB of RAM.

[lurky]

^ What Broni Said. XP experiences a diminishing gain when it comes to additional memory over one gig. Basically, adding more memory helps, but helps less and less the more you add.

In terms of your performance and dual channel memory:
You might as well put that third gig in there, because two gigs of dual channel isn't really any better at all.

Do you have a dedicated video adapter? If you don't, that could be why you're experiencing sluggish performance within Adobe.

[Broni]

There is also very serious difference between Vista, and XP, handling RAM.
In layman terms, Vista philosophy is: "RAM not used, is RAM wasted", so basically Vista will use any amount of RAM, you'll feed it with (within 32-, or 64-bit limit). XP doesn't work that way.
This is a screenshot from 2GB of RAM Vista system:

Take a note of "cached" memory number (most of RAM, because Vista wants to use everything available, or at least have RAM ready by cacheing it), and "free" RAM (single digit - free RAM is useless).

This is a screenshot from 1GB of RAM XP system:

Take a note of totally reverse trend. "Cached" RAM stands at 262MB, and "Available(free) RAM stands at 738MB.