Upgrade RAM = Big Impact?

[Luie]

Computer is getting really very slow.
Used 30Gb in 60Gb on my secondary PC already.
Would getting 512Mb RAM have a big impact on solving this slowness?
(slowness as in start PC, shutting down, loading Word, loading IE, loading Winamp, etc)

I would love to have answers from those who have upgraded their RAM after they have installed Windows XP.

[o770]

as far as im concerned about XP id say you would surely notice some improvement in the overall system performance, however you might also want to consider defragmenting the hard disk if you dont use to do it regularly.
installing the OS onto a small partition would also improve performance very noticeably, this is if you have XP using the whole 60GB.

as you say computer is getting slow.. this is not because the amount of system RAM.
there is this guide to tweaking XP, check if it cant be of any help to you: http://www.techspot.com/guides-os.shtml.

[JDXNC]

When I switched from 128MB to 192MB i noticed a diff, but when i switched from 192MB SD to 256MB of DDR there was a big difference, everything was more responsive and there was no lag to opening menus and other stuff like that. I say go for it and defrag at the same time. XP shouldn't have any prob, I didn't.

[o770]

i noticed big difference going from 128MB to 256MB with win2K, but this is already about the most a regular system would demand. now XP seems to take system resources quite badly, it would sure benefit performance, just not quite the same as going from 192/128MB to 256MB..

[JDXNC]

I am using Xp and I think it benfitted greatly from the extra bandwidth the DDR provided. I upgraded my step-bro's 1.33T-bird(running XP) from 128 to 512 (SDRAM) and there was a huge differece in pep.

[Skiing Squirrel]

I would upgrade. Im wondering this also, cuz I got 256 on xp, and if there is a huge diff, i'll get some more.

[james.miller]

Originally posted by oTTO
i noticed big difference going from 128MB to 256MB with win2K, but this is already about the most a regular system would demand. now XP seems to take system resources quite badly, it would sure benefit performance, just not quite the same as going from 192/128MB to 256MB..

actually xp did rather better in my case. my c3 is vastly better when upping to 320mb of sd from 256.
And, my athlon felt like a whole new system when i went from 256mb sdr to 512 ddr. Though upping it again to 768mb ddr didnt have the same effect.

so, id say 512mb is the sweet spot for xp, judging from my experiances

[Mull]

Windows xp uses almost 256 ram just running all the trash in the backround = slow. Give a wake up call and give it some ram

Mull

[Luie]

Thanks everybody.
I, myself, have 256MB in both my PCs with runs XP. (the 64Mb is running win98) =P

I'll get some RAM next time I go to the computer store.
I'll defrag it as well. (btw, installing the OS in another partition really gives a big difference? Wow, new knowledge for me. Thanks ottO. Thanks for the link as well.) :)

[o770]

installing the OS in a small partition will speed up some processes like when you do an automatic cleaning for instance, they are mostly disk processes. this is small partition is about 5GB which is big enough to have the OS in.

[Luie]

Thanks. 5GB. Indeed. :)
btw, should I install MS Office in the same partition or another one? Would that affect automatic cleaning?

[Audioaficionado]

Some M$ apps will install most of their files in the root\windows partition inspite of where you tell it to. I'm not sure about M$ office but you can try and put it on a different partition.

I'm putting my OSes on ~6Gb partitions. Then use the rest as common data storage.

BTW when I went from 32Mb to 288Mb RAM, it was like a new computer.

[Homer]

well i noticed a difference when i added 2 more 256 pc133 in my system. so i now have 768 of ram and im using win98se and these are some generic ram that lasted for yrs. my windows loads faster same goes for my games and apps. so i would diffinetly upgrade :)

[Yakbak]

I upgraded from 256MB DDR to 768MB DDR. I noticed my Windows is more smoother, less HD activity, but not that much speed increase jumping from 256MB to 768MB.

[Luie]

Smoother meaning no lags?
Than that's good. :)
Thanks for your input.