Installed more ram in son's PC, not happy

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Patman

Patman

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My son has an old PC in his room that my father gave him that I use to burn CDs and whenever something is incompatible with the Apple computer that I use most of the time. His computer only had 512MB of ram in it so I figured a cheap way to boost performance would be to upgrade that. The main problem I had was that booting up and opening new applications just seemed to lag so much, so I figured the ram boost would do wonders there since that same ram boost from 512 to 1.5GB worked very well on my Mac. His computer has three slots for ram and it only had the one 512MB stick in there, which is PC2100 ram, so I figured the best thing to do was to buy two more PC2100 512 MB sticks and go with a total of 1.5 GB. The computer does show that it recognizes the 1.5GB of ram, but it really doesn't seem faster at all, so now I'm beginning to wonder if I would've been better off just to take out that original 512MB and have gone with a single 1GB stick of the faster PC3200 ram (which I know his motherboard could've accepted) That would've cost me less money, but would it have performed better than what I have in there now? I can't get a refund on the ram unfortunately, Tiger Direct does not allow returns on ram
frown.gif


Also, am I correct in assuming that if I had tried to mix a single 1GB stick of PC3200 with the original PC2100 512MB, that it would not have worked? (that was my original idea until a couple of people told me the two different speeds of ram would be incompatible)
 
What is the condition of the hard disk? How much stuff is running in the task bar? What A/V?

If the HD is fragmented, that may slow booting, login and application start up. Ditto for having a bunch of stuff running.

If there are all sorts of programs running in the system tray that check things like updating Java or iTunes, or whatever, booting and login have to wait on all of those to run and do their checks.

Removing them can improve boot time, not to mention not chew up the RAM they use while starting.

Clearing out any unneeded files and de-fragmenting the HD may help as well.

Those are the things that come to mind.

Others may have ideas as well.
 
Thanks for the suggestions, I'm going to try those! But even without having done those things I figured that the boost in ram would help a lot more than it did, even though it is an old computer with just a single core 1.8 ghz processor (although that's bigger than the single 1.25 ghz processor I've got on my Mac and my Mac runs pretty quick)
 
The PC3200 would have just run at 2100 speed. This isn't a dual-channel setup from the sounds of it, so DIMM compatibility is less of an issue.

Get HDTach and see how fast/slow your drive is. That may be the source of your issue. And check to make sure the drive is running in DMA mode (check the properties of your primary IDE channel in device manager) as that will cause a HUGE performance hit.
 
Check paging file size. It is probally configured to previously installed ram. I would just set it to "System managed size".

If your not familiar with it's location. Right click on my computer->properties. Go to Advanced tab, then under Performance is a settings button. Next click on the Advanced tab, you will see virtual memory towards the bottom. Select "Change" then use "System managed size" press set then ok. It will say reboot.


Hope that helps.
 
Usually, you see an improvement going from under 256MB to 512MB and not much from going above that, unless you use large applications.

Sounds like others are right that your son's PC is full or bloatware and they only way to make it faster is to clear them out or reinstall the PC. I'd also imagine that if it is the original HD it is pretty slow compare to the newer ones of today. Most DDR1 system I know are not dual channel, so you can mix and match memory, and usually upgrading to something faster than what it comes with will not help, unless the system comes with a neutered memory to begin with (i.e. some Dell system ship with a slower DDR2 memory than the chipset/CPU can handle, but that's usually DDR2 533/666/800 variety).
 
Google services needed for Windows to run and disable the ones not needed.
Under the Control Panel, open Administrative Tools then open Services.
Right click on each service that is not needed, and there is a bunch of them, click on "properties" then on the "logon" tab at top. Then you can elect to disable that service under the current profile.

I did this to my 6 year old home built PC with XP and just 1 gig of memory and the boot time was cut from almost 4 t 5 minutes to just under a minute and a half.

I also created a second profile and called it "gaming" and disabled even more services that aren't needed when playing a simulator....Train or Flight sim...and the boot time is less than a minute.
You can Google all this info.
 
Originally Posted By: beast3300
Check paging file size. It is probally configured to previously installed ram. I would just set it to "System managed size".

If your not familiar with it's location. Right click on my computer->properties. Go to Advanced tab, then under Performance is a settings button. Next click on the Advanced tab, you will see virtual memory towards the bottom. Select "Change" then use "System managed size" press set then ok. It will say reboot. Hope that helps.

Good tip. Just one more suggestion, set virtual memory to the max (1.5 times the RAM), both in the initial and max size boxes. It slows down hard drive defragmentation. Once you defrag, Windows will reserve a continuous section of the hard drive for virtual memory.
 
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With 1.5GB of RAM you should not need a very large page file. Setting virtual memory to the max is going to do nothing. My bet is any combination of slow, fragmented, or full hard drive.
 
Originally Posted By: Ursae_Majoris
Originally Posted By: beast3300
Check paging file size. It is probally configured to previously installed ram. I would just set it to "System managed size".

If your not familiar with it's location. Right click on my computer->properties. Go to Advanced tab, then under Performance is a settings button. Next click on the Advanced tab, you will see virtual memory towards the bottom. Select "Change" then use "System managed size" press set then ok. It will say reboot. Hope that helps.

Good tip. Just one more suggestion, set virtual memory to the max (1.5 times the RAM), both in the initial and max size boxes. It slows down hard drive defragmentation. Once you defrag, Windows will reserve a continuous section of the hard drive for virtual memory.


I've always run 1.5x min, and 3x max.. Page file doesn't like the issue here, but it wouldn't hurt to check it. Check HD as mentioned.
 
Originally Posted By: tmorris1
The more memory you have the smaller the page file you need.


Bingo.

I have 8GB of RAM. By the 'ol rule-of-thumb logic, I should have at least a 16GB page file. Which is ridiculous.
 
I defragged the HD, and changed the paging file size and it helped speed things up a little bit, thanks guys! It's still not as quick as I'd hoped but it'll do for now. Eventually I'm going to replace my own computer with a faster one (and it'll have a working CD/DVD burner again) so I won't be using his computer hardly at all then anyhow. I will still need to use his PC when I need to check my oil analysis results from Wearcheck though, since they still refuse to write their software to allow Mac users onto their Webcheck site!
 
Here is what I would do [Assuming this is a WinXP computer]:

1) Download, install and run the latest version of CCleaner, the portable version is good as well. CCleaner will remove a lot of junk and temp files that bog down computers. You can also use CCleaner to disable programs that have configured themselves to automatically start when Windows in started.

http://www.ccleaner.com/

2) Do the following if Internet Explorer is used as the primary browser. Navigate to Start>>Settings>>Control Panel>>Internet Options and click the Settings button on the General tab. Select "Every time I visit the webpage" and set maximum disk space to 100MB and click OK to return to the General tab. Configure History to save 1 day instead of the default setting of 20 days, click accept, then Delete History and OK.

3) Select the System icon in the control panel, then the Advanced tab. Turn off Error Reporting, then click the Performance button and either change the display settings to "Best Performance" or to "Let Windows decide what's best for my system".

4)Set the Page File min/max to the size recommended at the bottom of the tab. Allowing the Page File's size to fluctuate will allow it become fragmented, as data will be written to multiple locations on the hard drive as the Page File grows/shrinks.

5)Navigate to Start>>Programs>>Accessories>>System Tools>>Disk Cleanup and check/delete other junk files, but do not select option to compress hard drive. On the next tab, or if you Right-Click the drive in My Computer and select Tools, delete all Shadow Copies and Restore Points except the most current.

6) Click Folder Options in the Control Panel, then in the View Tab select Show Hidden Files/Folders. Navigate to C: and delete all Hotfix installer files, which will be blue and usually start/end with "$" signs. These are not needed in most cases and take up space. Once complete, go back to Folder Options and Hide Files/Folders.

7) Click CTRL-ALT-DELETE and see how much CPU and Memory is being used. Determine how much drive space is free by looking at the drive in My Computer. If the free space is less than 40%, then it's time to get a new drive or move some files to an external drive.

8) Check for Malware, especially if the computer has been used for Peer-2-Peer sharing. Malwarebytes is a great freeware application for finding and cleaning malware. Hitman Pro can be used for free to check for Rootkits and other malware, but only the paid version will remove them. A one-year license for Hitman Pro is only $15, which is not bad considering that it will find and remove Rootkits that most signature-based antivirus programs miss.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/

http://www.surfright.nl/en/hitmanpro

9)Microsoft Security Essentials is currently one of the best [and free] antivirus solutions.

http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/

10) MyDefrag is not quite as fast as Defraggler, but it does a better job than many not-free defrag programs. Best practice is to set your system to "No Page File" then Reboot into Safe Mode [Press F8 repeatedly during boot screen], run MyDefrag "Monthly" and then reboot and set Page File back to proper size. When installing MyDefrag, select the Daily Defrag option and your drive will stay in good shape.

http://www.mydefrag.com/

Anyway, I could go on and on, but the steps above should get you off to a good start.
 
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Not only that but what type of processor is it?

If its a P4 and the board supports dual channel memory, you will not want to run three sticks of memory, but 2 in tandem. P4's are bandwidth hungry and dual channel will boost that performance.

AMD's are the same way, but not sure what your exact specs are. Configuration is pretty important, specially with older systems.
 
Originally Posted By: Anies
Not only that but what type of processor is it?

If its a P4 and the board supports dual channel memory, you will not want to run three sticks of memory, but 2 in tandem. P4's are bandwidth hungry and dual channel will boost that performance.

AMD's are the same way, but not sure what your exact specs are. Configuration is pretty important, specially with older systems.

It would have 2 or 4 slots if it was dual channel capable. My feeling is this is just a older slow system and there is nothing you can do about it.
 
Originally Posted By: Onmo'Eegusee
I have a Nforce 2 chipset based board sitting here. Dual channel, 3 slot.


Yup, I've seen a few AMD systems like that. I don't recall an Intel chipset setup in that manner however.
 
I bought more memory for ours also and it doesn't seem any better than before. It's a AMD 64 X2 Dual Processor 4400 on a Asus board. From the factory it came with 2 chips for the dual channel. I knew I should of bought 2 more in the upgrade not sure why I did. Although many say that in normal operation single versus dual you won't notice a difference.. I'm starting to wonder.

On a side note I ran CCleaner.. that there is a excellent program!
 
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