I want to increase my memory to 1 gig. Is this something a
inexperienced person can do? I have 256 in slot 1 and 256 in slot 3,
is it as simple as removing those and replacing it with a 1 gig stick?
Or is there more to installing ram? I can take it in and have it done
for a $40 labor charge.
Three points:
1. It's easy, but if you've never done it before, it might be a good
idea to have a friend with more experience help you the first time.
2. Make sure you buy memory that's compatible with your motherboard.
Not all memory is appropriate for you.
3. Why do you want to do this? Most people running Windows XP will see
little or no performance benefit by going from 512MB to 1GB. How much
RAM you need for good performance is *not* a one-size-fits-all
situation. You get good performance if the amount of RAM you have
keeps you from using the page file, and that depends on what apps you
run. Most people running a typical range of business applications find
that somewhere around 256-384MB works well, others need 512MB. Almost
anyone will see poor performance with less than 256MB. Some people,
particularly those doing things like editing large photographic
images, can see a performance boost by adding even more than
512MB--sometimes much more.
If you are currently using the page file significantly, more memory
will decrease or eliminate that usage, and improve your performance.
If you are not using the page file significantly, more memory will do
nothing for you. Go to
http://billsway.com/notes_public/winxp_tweaks/ and download
WinXP-2K_Pagefile.zip and monitor your pagefile usage. That should
give you a good idea of whether more memory can help, and if so, how
much more.