Computer Advice

One of the easiest upgrades that a computer user can do is to simply install more RAM. Unlike some computer hardware tasks, it is relatively easy to install more RAM to a PC. This guide will help even beginning users to install more RAM in their PC.

The first step in order to install more RAM to a PC is to determine the kind of RAM needed. For mass market PCs (Dell, HP, et cetera), the first step is to identify the model number of the PC. Typically, such a model number will be located on the front of the PC’s case. Otherwise, check the back of the computer for a model number or serial number.

Secondly, once the model number has been obtained, check the manufacturer’s website. Under the manufacturer’s support or FAQ page, look for one of two things: First, some manufacturers may have a guide showing how to install more RAM. In this case, proceed that way. Otherwise, check your PC’s “Specifications” page. Such a page will show all of the technical details related to the computer’s inner workings, such as the processor speed, hard drive capacity, and other things. The important detail to look for here is the maximum amount of RAM supported. This will tell if it is even possible to install more RAM. An example of such a listing will say “2GB DDR RAM (4GB Max)”. This section here should also state the kind of RAM being used.

This is a very important thing to note in order to install more RAM into a PC since not all RAM is compatible with the other. Look for terms such as “DDR2”, “DDR”, “SD”, “DDR3”, and “RAMBUS”. An example of one of these full listings may be “2GB DDR2 PC5300 (4GB Max)”.

Once the maximum amount of RAM and type of RAM has been determined, the process to actually install more RAM becomes simpler. Since the type of RAM needed has been determined, it is easy to know what to look for – simply order the appropriate speed and capacity. With the PC powered down and unplugged from the wall, unscrew the bolts holding the side of the case in place. If looking at the back of the computer, the proper side will be the side on the right. If this is a “Desktop” style PC (One that lies on a desk horizontally), there may be more screws to remove depending on the case’s design.

The next step to install more RAM is to identify the RAM itself. Using the newly bought chips as reference, find the original installed RAM on the motherboard. Simply move the clips out of place and the RAM should pop right out – allowing the user to install more RAM. Align your RAM properly (it will only fit one way) and push the sticks into place with gentle pressure. A soft “pop” sound will be heard to signify that the process to install more RAM has succeeded. Reattach the side(s) of the case and enjoy the results!

Every installation of Windows will eventually slow down and start running slower than usual. This happens for many reason and in this article, we discuss ways you can speed up your system.

Windows has several option user can use to alter the various ways windows utilises your system.

Turn off Windows indexing service

The windows indexing service is potentially unnecessary. Disabling the indexing services will reduce the hard drive use on your computer and thus speeds up Windows. The Windows Indexing Service will catalogue the contents of your hard disk including the contents of files, to make local searching faster. This is great if you forget the name of a file for example, as you can search the content so if you were for instance, writing a word document about “blue widgets”, windows will search for blue widgets in the content of the file as well as file names.

Defragging your hard drive regularly

Defragging your hard drive regularly will speed up your Windows installation. With the release of Windows 7, defragging has become much easier as it has a fully functional defragmentation tool that can be set to run on automatic or manual. The defrag program works by organizing the content of your hard disks in a logical order and hence speeding up read write time on your hard disk as the drive head has to do less work.

Turning off the Aero Theme

The aero theme for Windows 7 makes it visually stunning but it is also a resource hog. If your PC is new, this won’t make much of a difference to you, but for older systems, the aero theme can cripple a slower PC. To turn the theme off, right click your desktop and select Personalization and choose Windows 7 Basic from the options. Obviously, the basic theme uses much less system recourses and can greatly speed up Windows if you have a slower graphics card and little system ram.

Adding more system memory

Adding more ram can also greatly increase your systems performance. Installing more ram in your system means windows can utilise this much faster memory for storing the programs you run. If Windows runs out of ram, its starts to use your hard drive as virtual ram which is much much slower a will make your PC crawl. There are a couple of issues when adding more ram to your system. 32 bit versions of windows have a memory limit of 3.5GB, so adding any more becomes pointless. 64 bit versions have much higher limit of 192 GB. Some older PC will only have a limited number of ram slots, again reducing the amount you can physically install in your system.

There’s been a lot of controversy surrounding computer hardware and what actually works to speed up your computer and provide promising results. However, most of the confusion resides around the various computer software applications that claim they can provide similar improvements. However, as a computer technician, such claims are completely unjustified and can instantly be ruled out. Software that claims it can speed up your computer can only function to an extent. In reality, there is only so much that software can accomplish, once it has reached its maximum capabilities, it’s likely that your computer will still be running at its same, slow speeds. In fact, there’s actually more that you can do yourself to improve upon your computer speeds with free software that’s available on the Internet.

If you’ve tried some of the free tools like CCleaner and Disk Defraggler, as well as running your anti-virus software and you haven’t seen any improvements, the next step is to purchase computer hardware. Inside your computer you have several main components. If you’ve ever seen the inside of a computer then you might think it looked rather technical, however it’s really not very complicated at all. The main part to a computer is the motherboard. Essentially, the motherboard is what all of the other parts in the computer connect to. Connecting to the motherboard you have the power supply that provides power to the computer, the hard drive, CD Drive, RAM, Processor or CPU and any custom modifications you’ve made to your machine. You can pretty quickly distinguish which of these components actually provide importance in the functionality of your computers speed. The hard drive provides space for you to store your files, the CD drive allows you to insert disks that will operate on the computer, and the processor and RAM work together to improve the functionality of running programs and opening files. Typically, if you have a slow processor or not enough RAM installed in your computer then it will suffer from unrecoverable slow speeds. There’s no software on the market that can improve upon the speed of your computer if the hardware is what’s at fault. If your processor is not dual core, it’s recommended that you upgrade to a dual core processor with at least 2.0 GHZ. Secondly, if you don’t have a minimum of 1GB of RAM then you should consider upgrading. Even with 1GB of RAM your computer might still suffer from operation issues and you could try installing up to 2.0GB for better performance.