By Christer Steinsvik (Contributed)
So the time has come, your PC is slowing you down and taking forever to start your favorite applications. You have gone through the normal stuff we do when this happens and you are done defragging, scanning for viruses, uninstalling applications and all the other stuff.
This might be a good time to have a look at your computer’s memory usage, and compare that to how much RAM you actually have installed. I’m going to use my computer as an example here just to keep things simple. I’m at this point running Windows7 on a fairly new computer, and its chugging along just fine at about 40% of the 6 gigabytes I have installed.
This is ok I guess, when I fire up Photoshop or some huge game I wish I had more, but for most people 6gb of ram and using under 50% of it will keep your PC running just fine. The signs to look for is when you are doing no intensive work on your computer and its still using 75% or more of your total ram. Then your ram usage once you start using you computer will slow you down.
Its not going to fail or crash most of the time, because when you run out of installed ram Windows will start using your hard drives for “ram operations” and that’s is what you really don’t want. There are ways of limiting ram usage some are obvious some aren’t. you can try uninstalling and removing add ons and tasks running on your task bar. Disable or shut down applications that aren’t being used. Especially keep an eye on Microsoft live messenger, this program is a notorious RAM thief even just sitting on your desktop doing nothing.
Another thing most people know is huge background images use a lot of ram, however keep in mind also that the icons and files you keep om your desktop are just as bad. Therefor storing folders with images and movies/music might be convenient its not really recommended.
Look for more guides and tips on Pc memory upgrade in future articles.
Jan Christer Steinsvik
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Christer_Steinsvik
http://EzineArticles.com/?PC-Memory-Upgrade-Guide&id=3830776
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Nice article, never thought about my wallpaper using a lot of RAM I will have to look at that. Love the new site look, great colors.
People must get high frequency ram to get faster pc. But also DDR3 now are more expensive than DDR2. So more colour on the windows then more ram eating. Way back to black and white screen. Nice recommendations based on your article.