Do I need more memory?

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pae77 · #1 Post by **pae77** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 3:11 pm

Lately my T42p has not been quite as snappy performance wise as I would like. It seems to be running a bit slower than it used to. (No viruses or spyware.) I am wondering if more memory would improve the situation. I already have a 7200 rpm HD and 1 gig of ram. Would I see a noticeable improvement if I had 1.5 gig of ram?

pianowizard · #2 Post by **pianowizard** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 3:15 pm

Adding memory might help, but I recommend trying CCleaner and defragmenting the HDD first. I run CCleaner several times a week, and defrag HDDs a few times a year.

pae77 · #3 Post by **pae77** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 3:26 pm

Thanks, I'll try CC cleaner. I already have Diskeeper installed which automatically keeps my HD defragmented so that can't be the problem.

Ken Fox · #4 Post by **Ken Fox** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 4:00 pm

pae77 wrote:Lately my T42p has not been quite as snappy performance wise as I would like. It seems to be running a bit slower than it used to. (No viruses or spyware.) I am wondering if more memory would improve the situation. I already have a 7200 rpm HD and 1 gig of ram. Would I see a noticeable improvement if I had 1.5 gig of ram?

Is your hard drive almost full? It could be full of such stuff as R&R Backups and other stuff you are not aware of. Windows Drive Restore can take up a number of gigabytes, and if the pagefile is accidentally set to some large custom value, that's another chunk of space used up.

If the hard disk has no "headroom," it can't be effectively defragmented.

In Windows Explorer, do a right click for "properties," and see how much of the hard disk is full and what remains empty.

pae77 · #5 Post by **pae77** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 4:08 pm

My hard drive has 31.5 gig used and 19.6 gig free, so I think I'm ok (for now) there.

I did run CCleaner and there were a lot of things in the registry that it flagged for removal so I backed up the registry and let it do its thing. It will be interesting to see if that makes much difference.

#6 Post by **rkawakami** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 5:36 pm

My recommendation would be to download something like MobileMeter from here:

http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-Oakland/8259/

(click on the second link down from the top; file is "mm0310.zip")

Run the program and it can be configured to show important system parameters such as CPU temperature, HD temperature, and most importantly, the CPU speed. If you have inadvertantly changed some of Windows power management features, your CPU may be throttled down.

Oh, and adding another 512MB of memory to a 1GB system will probably not speed things up much unless you are running many programs or some of them are real memory hogs (photoshop, video editing, etc.).

Temetka · #7 Post by **Temetka** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 8:18 pm

If you do decide to upgrade your RAM, go for a full gig. You system will be maxed. That way if you ever decide to run Vista on it, you'll be set. Also there is no point (not much of one anyway) in only adding a 512MB stick, which you more than likely pull in the future anyway.

pae77 · #8 Post by **pae77** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 9:23 pm

Well, right now I have two 512 sticks, so to max it out, I would have to buy two 1 gig sticks. I might end up doing that, but I would probably first add just one 1 gig stick which would bring me to 1.5 gig and see how that goes before adding a second one gig stick.

Temetka · #9 Post by **Temetka** » Thu Feb 01, 2007 2:11 am

That is what I am about to do. I would suggest replacing the stick under the keyboard first. It's a little harder to do. This way when you go to add the second stick later, just a few screws and your done.

ashleys · #10 Post by **ashleys** » Thu Feb 01, 2007 9:43 am

If you think you need more RAM you need to look in Task Manager to calculate your current memory usage both real and virtual.

Get an idea of what the figures are for both normal running and then when you've got your most memory hungry applications running. Only when you have these figures to hand can you decide if you need more memory.

#11 Post by **Johan** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 8:44 am

- you may also try to delete all files in C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch as this will decrease WinXP boot-up time.

(see e.g. http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articl ... ch-XP.html).

Regards,

Johan

toad · #12 Post by **toad** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 3:23 pm

Alternatively you might want to consider installing the latest Kubuntu (linux) on it. I've got it running on mine and it purrs along just fine with the bog standard specs (faster than my desktop with better specs!).

Viruses? Spyware? Defragmentation? Don't know the meaning of it.

Anyway, installation was a breeze and everything bar the modem worked straight out of the box.

Just my 2 cents' worth...

Do I need more memory?

Do I need more memory?

Re: Do I need more memory?

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