[OT] Computer upgrades (was: RAM upgrades)

Heretic Apostate · Sep 12, 2002

What does upgrading your RAM do? I'm currently at 128MB of RAM. If I were to upgrade to 256MB of RAM, what could I expect? Would things run faster, since there's more memory? It's a cheap upgrade, I think, only about $60 or so. But money's tight (I still have to replace the MS Office Pro that I lent out and never got back, dangit...), so if it won't make a major improvement, not much point.

(I'm considering adding another Hard Drive, but I only used 12 out of 27 GB of my 30GB hard drive. As a side question, what happened to the other 3GB I paid for?)

Psionicist · Sep 12, 2002

Re: [OT] RAM upgrades

Heretic Apostate said:
What does upgrading your RAM do? I'm currently at 128MB of RAM. If I were to upgrade to 256MB of RAM, what could I expect? Would things run faster, since there's more memory? It's a cheap upgrade, I think, only about $60 or so. But money's tight (I still have to replace the MS Office Pro that I lent out and never got back, dangit...), so if it won't make a major improvement, not much point.

(I'm considering adding another Hard Drive, but I only used 12 out of 27 GB of my 30GB hard drive. As a side question, what happened to the other 3GB I paid for?)

Do you multitask alot? That is do your run many programs open at the same time? If so, you WILL notice a difference. WinXP is very picky with RAM. You need around 512mb for total smoothness. W2k only need 256mb for the same feel...

I need 512mb:
http://psionicist.online.fr/stuff/merram.gif

Staffan · Sep 12, 2002

More RAM makes things go faster. The reason is that when you run out of physical RAM, the OS swaps lesser-used portions of memory out to the hard drive ("virtual memory"). Reading and writing to the HD is *much* slower than reading/writing RAM. The more physical memory you have, the less swapping is needed which makes the whole thing run faster.

Morrus · Sep 12, 2002

Re: Re: [OT] RAM upgrades

Psionicist said:
Do you multitask alot? That is do your run many programs open at the same time? If so, you WILL notice a difference. WinXP is very picky with RAM. You need around 512mb for total smoothness. W2k only need 256mb for the same feel...

I need 512mb:
http://psionicist.online.fr/stuff/merram.gif

Wow... are you (as a human, not your computer) actually able to deal with 16 applications/windows simulataneously? If I have more than 3-4 open, I close 'em.

Tsyr · Sep 12, 2002

Re: Re: Re: [OT] RAM upgrades

Morrus said:
Wow... are you (as a human, not your computer) actually able to deal with 16 applications/windows simulataneously? If I have more than 3-4 open, I close 'em.

I run with 5+ open just as a BASELINE most times... a few explorer windows, Sysreset, ICQ, and Winamp.

Right now I have open:

Five IE windows
Two folders on my hard drive
Sysreset (An enhanced version of mIRC)
ICQ
JASC Paint Shop Pro
GetRight handeling 2 seperate downloads
Grokster
Winamp
StarOffice (For a school paper I should be writing but am not)
cGoban (Internet program for playing Go over the KGS network)

pensiv · Sep 12, 2002

Re: Re: Re: [OT] RAM upgrades

Morrus said:
Wow... are you (as a human, not your computer) actually able to deal with 16 applications/windows simulataneously? If I have more than 3-4 open, I close 'em.

I also tend to do about a dozen things at a time on the computer.

Psionicist · Sep 12, 2002

Re: Re: Re: [OT] RAM upgrades

Morrus said:
Wow... are you (as a human, not your computer) actually able to deal with 16 applications/windows simulataneously? If I have more than 3-4 open, I close 'em.

Yup. When it comes to multitasking, I am pretty femaleish.

Morrus · Sep 12, 2002

Cripes. If I was trying to deal with that many different tasks, I'd explode - never mind my computer!

Heretic Apostate · Sep 12, 2002

Okay, few more questions.

From a computer games perspective (playing everything from old DOS games, some of which need MOSLO, all the way to new and upcoming games), what are the disadvantages from moving from WinME to WinXP? I think I remember reading that MOO3, for instance, won't be supported on WinXP, but that just means they haven't tested it.

Next, anyone know of a reliable and reputable online dealer that offers academic discounts? That's how I get most of my non-game software.

But it's been a few years, and I don't know of one any more. It looks like I may have to buy MS Office Pro XP, since I can't find a cheap MS Office Pro 2000 from a dealer I'd trust. (I'm bidding on one on eBay, but the guy has a 19 rating, so I'm not bidding much more than $80....) I tried to buy one from Yahoo shopping for $150, but their supplier ran out of stock.

How hard is it to upgrade a chip? Right now, I have a P3 733. What is the best upgrade I can do with the minimum of swapping out? (For instance, I seem to recall that motherboards are rather specific to the type of chip. I might be able to use the same motherboard for a faster P3, but I don't think I'd be able to upgrade to a P4, right?)

Argh. Not that I can afford to buy much right now.

But after I get that job, I'm going to want to set my computer up enough so I don't have to buy a new one. Or maybe, if the upgrades are too expensive, I'll just buy a new computer and ship the old one off to my sister, who's still runing on a 486-DX2.

Welverin · Sep 12, 2002

Heretic Apostate said:
(I'm considering adding another Hard Drive, but I only used 12 out of 27 GB of my 30GB hard drive. As a side question, what happened to the other 3GB I paid for?)

Don't bother with a new one if you're not even using half yet.

As for the missing 3GB's there my be more than one reason but part of it has to be fuzzy counting (a kb is not equal to 1000 b).

How hard is it to upgrade a chip? Right now, I have a P3 733. What is the best upgrade I can do with the minimum of swapping out? (For instance, I seem to recall that motherboards are rather specific to the type of chip. I might be able to use the same motherboard for a faster P3, but I don't think I'd be able to upgrade to a P4, right?)

You right about not being able to upgrade to a P4 without a new motherboard, and you'll need to do some checking in order to find out if you can upgrade yourcpu at all.