How can you tell...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jose I. Redondo
  • Start date Start date
J

Jose I. Redondo

.... if you need a memory upgrade?

My computer is a Toshiba Satellite 1900-102, PIV, 1,7Gh, 256Mb RAM, 20Gb
HDD, 80Gb
USB HDD, running Win XP HE (OEM), Norton Security 2002 (Antivirus plus
Firewall).
I use it at home, I am the only usuer. Most of the time I surf the
Internet, and frequently many applications are running at the same time
(let's say 8: explorer (4 or 5), outlook, Word, image editor...). Switching
applications is kind of slow sometimes.

Task Manager->Transaction load usually shows a value between 210,000 and
240,000 Kb.

Any suggestion will be welcomed. Thanx in advance!
 
Hey,

Go to task manager click on performance tab.Under
physical memeory "total" is all the memory you have on
your computer installed. "Aavailable" will show you the
amount of memory avaiable to you that you can actually
use and that is not taken up by other programs.So If you
are running 8 explorer windows, 2 outlook or whatever,
just go to there and if your avaiable memory is low you
need an upgrade of memeory.
 
Jose said:
... if you need a memory upgrade?

My computer is a Toshiba Satellite 1900-102, PIV, 1,7Gh, 256Mb RAM, 20Gb
HDD, 80Gb
Click to expand...

You need to check on the actual usage being made of the pagefile (not
the commitment to it that Task manager will show, and which may well
indicate merely a potential use that is seeing no actual traffic at
all).

Go to
www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm
and download the monitor - see what it reports on usage over a day of
two of fairly heavy use. If the answer is only about 20 MB (the system
is inclined always to put a bit in the file against contingencies) then
more RAM will do nothing for you. If it is say 100MB then a 128MB
upgrade is indicated, and so on. For a desktop machine the sensible
cost effective jump is 256MB more; for a laptop where RAM modules are
expensive, you might find 128 enough. But you need to make this
measurement of the usage being made in *your* work pattern.
 
emen said:
Go to task manager click on performance tab.Under
physical memeory "total" is all the memory you have on
your computer installed. "Aavailable" will show you the
amount of memory avaiable to you that you can actually
use and that is not taken up by other programs
Click to expand...

It does no such thing. that 'available Physical memory' is a very
misleading term; it should be RAM for which Windows can currently find
no conceivable use. It does *not* mean that this is all that is
available to say load a program - trivial uses like caching every file
around will be instantly dropped if a better one comes along
 
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