Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers (
More info?)
Hi Jagjeet,
If you were only using 185MB of ram to begin with, then you won't see much
improvement by increasing to 512MB. The point behind additional ram is to
prevent paging or use of the hard drive for virtual memory, which is much
slower than physical ram. If you were paging a lot to begin with, then
additional ram is a good thing. As was mentioned by the original responder,
the "free ram" idea is a misconception,. You want the system to be using the
ram as much as possible. Windows will attempt to find as much use for it as
it can, having free ram basically means you are not using what you paid for.
Think of it this way: Of what use is a chair if no one is allowed to sit in
it, but rather it just occupies space in your home? Looks good, but it's not
very functional.
To keep the system up to speed, you want performance settings set to be
optimized for programs, not background processes. You also want to limit
programs in the startup load to only those that are essential (many software
companies still insist on creating a startup entry for their program, and
most times it is wholly unnecessary), such as firewall and AV programs. Also
do regular checks for spy and ad programs, and uninstall anything that you
don't use. A heavy user should defrag periodically, but a casual user will
not notice any major increases in performance if they don't.
--
Best of Luck,
Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone
www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone
Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
"Jagjeet" <Jagjeet@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:6C18B735-D0E2-45E9-B68E-6D2ED4294001@microsoft.com...
> Thanks for your suggestion.
> i have upgraded my ram to 512,333Mhz.Still i do not see much radical
> improvement,as my system is 1.6centrino with 2MB cache,any suggestions on
> optimizing the Ram usage.
>
> Jagjeet Paul
>
> "Modem Ani" wrote:
>
>> Ideally, you want to have as little free RAM as possible. Since RAM is
>> the
>> fastest memory in your computer, you want to use it as much as you can.
>> We
>> have a saying: "Free RAM is wasted RAM".
>>
>> A better question is: How much RAM should I have for Windows XP to run
>> quickly? The answer there depends on what type of applications you use
>> most,
>> but in general, 512MB will get you good performance.
>>
>> Modem Ani
>>
>> "Jagjeet" <Jagjeet@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> news:BDBF122F-7F30-4D74-9E19-942FBC446753@microsoft.com...
>> > I have a HP notebook,& with just the system ON the taskmanger shows
>> > that
>> > about 185MB of Ram is used .The machine has 256MB of Ram.
>> >
>> > What is generally the good size of Free available ram for fast
>> > operation
>> of
>> > PC with Windows XP pro?
>>
>>
>>