Page filing

[socialstealth]

I'd like to speed up my computer, particularly the internet.

I just recently upgraded from 1gb to 3gb of ram. I changed the page filing from 'let windows choose' to NONE. However, I haven't noticed much of an improvement. my computer is only using about 550-650mb of ram.

I notice hiccups when loading web pages, especially when I have more than 1 tab open.

I have a 7200 rpm 250gb hdd, 50% full. 3.2ghz pentium 4.


The new ram I got is 800 mhz, I'm not sure how fast the old ram the computer had. Should I take out the old ram? (x2 512mb)
Or should I switch the positions? Is there any way to make the computer use the faster ram? is about 500mb of ram usage normal?

Any ideas on how to get rid of these hiccups, or why its hiccuping?

 

[Ijack]

Any ideas on how to get rid of these hiccups, or why its hiccuping?

Don't run without a page file - this won't speed anything up, but may cause problems. Some programs expect to find a page file. If you don't like a dynamic size then make it a fixed size, but it won't make a lot of difference to performance in your case.

 

[jaguarskx]

Not having a Page File will definitely slow down your PC. Restore it ASAP.

As for internet... It depends on traffic an the server / site you are trying to download from and if there are any download speed limits on those servers.

 

[socialstealth]

OH crap. My understand of it was, page filing is using your hdd as ram. And obviously ram is faster than using your hdd as ram.
I read an article somewhere that said if you had 'enough' ram (3+ gb) you would see an improvement my limiting your page filing, or getting rid of it all together. Thoughts on this?

 

[Ijack]

You have been misinformed. The page file is only used when it is needed - and if it's needed but isn't there, that's a recipe for trouble. The only downside of a page file is that it uses some disk space. With the size of disk drives nowadays who cares about a GB or so?

You may have misunderstood what you read - having a dynamically sized page file, as opposed to a fixed size one, can have a very small impact on performance at times. Having no page file can lead to poor performance and system crashes.

 

[socialstealth]

so what setting would you recommend?

initial = ?
max = ?

or system managed

 

[Ijack]

Personally I'd go with system managed. But if you want to set it manually try 3 GB for both settings (that way the file is a fixed size and never needs to grow - this is the main cause of any performance problems).