Adding More Memory or RAM Is The Most Cost Effective Upgrade To Increase Performance

Do you have a computer that’s a few years old? Maybe it was a top of the line store bought PC or Mac or you ordered it online. Maybe it was a bargain model you bought from a local retail chain. Whatever the case, it may have begun to feel sluggish and you’ve pondered making the leap to a new computer. Of course, these days, every dollar counts and none more so when it comes to making expenses for computers or associated components.

Perhaps all you really need is a boost from an increase in the amount of RAM, Random Access Memory, installed in your PC or Mac. In the past few years, RAM has become very cheap and can be found and bought from just about anywhere online or locally. It is also very easy to install on your own without having to pay an expensive fee for having a third party installer do a simple task for you.

Let me emphasize this as much as possible, you can NEVER have too much RAM installed in a system. Modern operating systems and applications perform best with an abundance of RAM installed on a machine. If you’ve heard of virtual memory or have a vague understanding of what a page file is, then you must know that the reason for their existence is because most computers never had a large amount of RAM installed and the operating system had to have some way to support its own needs for memory and the needs of any applications. Multitasking, or having more than one application open at once, complicates this further. The less RAM you have installed, the more applications you have open at once, the more your PC or Mac will have to rely on virtual memory to keep things going and the slower your computer will feel.

Virtual memory is great in that it allows us to have more than one application open at once, yet it is so terribly slow as it is nothing more than some amount of space on your hard drive, which is tremendously slower at transferring data than RAM is. Yes, upgrading your hard drive and replacing it with a larger and faster one would help this some and perhaps even quiet the thrashing as all of your applications are still using virtual memory, but it won’t get rid of the reason you need to use virtual memory so often or so much.

Upgrading the processor or CPU would help speed up your computer, however you will find that unless you also upgrade the amount of RAM installed in your PC or Mac, it won’t speed things up as much as it could. Since the slowest component within most computers is the hard drive, your CPU will spend a significant amount of time waiting for the hard drive to transfer data between virtual memory and RAM.

As with just about anything in life, your mileage may vary. Depending on what OS you have installed, the kind of applications you most frequently use and how many at any given time will determine how much RAM you need. For the purposes of this hub and to keep things as simple as possible, I will assume you are planning on upgrading an older computer that isn’t used for particularly demanding activities such as gaming, graphics design or other highly intensive tasks. If you have Windows XP installed and typically use it for light activities such as word processing, spreadsheets, browsing and email, I would highly recommend having at least 1 GB of RAM installed. If you have Windows Vista or Windows 7 installed, I would recommend having a minimum of 2 GB of RAM installed. For Mac OS X 10.4-10.5, it is recommended to have a minimum of 1 GB of RAM.

Remember, more is better and I’m only making suggestions for what you should at least have installed for particularly simple tasks such as what an older PC or Mac might experience in an office or home setting instead of being used for gaming.

Its really quite easy. You can simply use Google and perform a search for your computer’s brand and model number and add “specifications” or “RAM” or similar terms to find out what type of and how much RAM your computer supports. There are many types of RAM out there, ranging from SDRAM, RDRAM and all the way from DDR through DDR3 RAM used in newer computers. If you can find the manufacturer’s page detailing the specifications of the type of RAM your computer uses and how much it will support, you can simply search any major retailer’s website for the specifications of the RAM you need and find what will work with your computer.

For example, I have an Acer Aspire One D250. Searching for the specifications of it on Google reveals that it has a single slot for RAM on the motherboard and that it uses DDR2 PC2-5300 type RAM and supports up to 2 GB of total installed RAM. This means that I should search Amazon or other retailers for 2GB of PC2-5300 RAM. Note, desktop and laptop RAM differs physically, even though they are all listed with similar speed ratings. Most retailers allow you to specify whether you are seeking desktop or laptop type RAM. An easy way to find out what type of RAM your PC or Mac uses is to visit www.Crucial.com. Crucial markets and sells their own brand of RAM upgrades for just about every PC or Mac under the sun and they have an easy to use menu to find out exactly what and how much your computer can take. They also have a downloadable scanner tool that you can use if you have no idea what brand or model of PC or Mac you have.

Crucial will give you a listing of what sizes of their own RAM will work with your PC or Mac, however I highly recommend that you don’t purchase from them as just about any other retailer will be much cheaper.

Its really quite easy to install RAM by yourself. Simply shutdown and turn off your computer, unplug it. Remove the case panel or open the side of the computer (For example, my Power Mac G4 has a simple latched side panel that opens up to reveal the motherboard). Touch the power supply casing or chassis to ground yourself and discharge any static electricity. If your computer’s RAM slots are all full, then remove the older card(s) by unlatching them until the pop out slightly from their sockets and remove them. Install the new RAM cards by lining up the notch(es) on the card(s) with the notch(es) in the slots and apply gentle, even pressure until they lock into place and the latches on both sides are closed around them.

Its really quite easy and can be done in less than five minutes if you have a screwdriver handy and you know what you’re doing. However, the five measly minutes you can spend on this will greatly improve the performance of your PC or Mac, especially if you’re installing significantly more RAM than what you originally had installed. Plug everything back in and boot up and make sure that your operating system recognizes all of the new RAM you’ve added. If so, enjoy the smoother performance that more RAM will bring to you and enjoy a quieter system (without the constant thrashing of the hard drive thanks to virtual memory).