upgrading memory

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upgrading memory

Postby Kawiill » Wed 2006 Sep 13 6:07

I want to upgrade my computer memory, because is running too slow and my hard drive is almost full. Can somebody give me some good tips on how to get the better quality memory. THANK YOU.
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Postby Krank » Thu 2006 Sep 14 2:21

First you need to know how much ram your motherbord can handle. look into the manual for that.
you need to know how much rams slot's you have and how much stick's <---another word for the ramthingy's you are using already, hence how much slot's are used already.

Example; if your motherboard has two slots wich both are used for ram but you want more ram you need to figure out if the type of ram is availeble for a price you can affort if you need to upgrade them both.

Last but not least; wich type of ram does your mother board support....

I hope these questions help you a bit:)
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Postby cmptch » Thu 2006 Sep 14 4:42

I get a lot of customers wanting more memory because their hard drive is full. This is a common misconception.

Memory and Hard Drive space are two seperate problems.

Memory is Temporary storage that the operating system(Windows) uses to load data. example: When you load Microsoft Paint, It goes into memory. When you draw the picture it is created in memory.

Hard Drive Space(Disk Space) is permanently saved information. When you save the picture you drew in paint, it is stored on the hard drive permanently, or untill you delete it.

In lines of Memory quality, there's only a couple things to look for. price, and warranty. In general, the cheaper the memory, the cheaper the quality. This is not always a best example. What you want is a lifetime guarantee. Apacer and Kingston have been very good for me.

For memory, as krank says, you need to look for the memory type and speed. Speed can be very important for some types of memory. You need to keep in mind to match the speed of the memory you have in their now if you are adding a chip.
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Postby Ben Last » Thu 2006 Sep 14 6:10

You say that your pc is running slowly, and you say your hard disk is nearly full.

The fact that your hard drive is nearly full is likely to be the reason that your PC is running slowly, adding more RAM may ease this slightly but by far the best way would be to free up some space on your hard drive.

When your pc runs out of RAM use store temporary information then some of this information is stored on your hard disk, the data on your hard disk over time becomes scattered over the disk, meaning that when accessing data the amount of time required will increase, which can slow down the pc.

When the hard disk is nearly full it can take longer to acces the data because the read/write heads must move backward & forward across the disk to access the small amounts of free space available, which will take longer.

I'm not sure I have explained this very well at all, prehaps somebody else can explain what I'm trying to say in a better way.
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Postby Spock » Thu 2006 Sep 14 8:34

I teach Disk Defragmentation to my Computer Fundamentals Class and I think I teach it to my Tech Class as well but that may be one of the things I "assume" they should know already before coming to the Tech Class.

In the past I have allowed students to take the Tech Class without taking the Fundamentals first. I think I will not allow this any more unless they can pass the Fundamentals final with a 100% score. :? I am finding that there is just too much they don't know and I don't have time to teach both courses at the same time I am supposed to be teaching the Tech Course.
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