|
|
|
|
Question:
My computer has been having trouble running programs that it passes all the requirements for, so I downloaded a RAM tracker and it says that out of the 32MB RAM I have, my computer normally only uses 3MB on an average at most times. How do I get my RAM to work faster?
Answer:
Chances are pretty good that the problem is not your RAM, but the number and size of the programs and utilities you already have running. All sorts of programs load tiny things into memory ... and some of them are not so tiny. Examples would be: AOL IM, ICQ, RealJukebox, MS Office FindFast, Norton AntiVirus. All of these programs have a purpose, and were probably installed for a very good reason too. But each of them also steals just a little bit more RAM and "CPU Cycles" (a fancy name for the amount of work your computer can do).First thing to try is to defragment your hard drive. Reordering files so they load faster can help tremendously. To defragment your hard drive, double click on the My Computer icon on your desktop. When the window opens, right click on your hard drive, choose Properties from the pop-up menu, then select the "Tools" tab. The last button on that tab will be the one you want.
NOTE: Defragmenting your drive can take quite a while. Be patient. You might want to start it before you go to bed at night.
Next thing to check is what programs are running when your computer is doing 'nothing'. Close all open applications, then hit Ctrl-Alt-Del *ONCE* (don't hit it again or your computer will reboot). A small window will pop up showing the list of "Active Tasks". You can look through this list and get a good idea of what is active. Consider removing or disabling anything that you don't really need. (My personal favorite to disable is RealJukebox from Real Media ... it's a RAM and CPU hog.)
When you are done looking at the list, hit the Cancel button to close the task list and return to Windows.
In summary, I think your RAM Tracker is somewhat misleading. What it is probably reporting is not the actual RAM usage, but some small portion of RAM that Windows is using for a specific task. 32MB is not much RAM by today's standards. You really might want to consider upgrading to 64MB if possible.