Toshiba - Extra 512MB Ram???

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mike1111

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Hi. I have a Toshiba Satellite which has 512MB RAM. At best, its pretty slow when I am trying to run a few programs at once. I have had a quick check of the programs which run on start up and got rid of most of the crap.

I was just wondering if people could let me know what I could expect from the extra 512MB RAM added to my machine.

I have a Satellite M40x
 
i had a desktop which had only 512 (2x256) and it was running pretty slow so i decided to upgrade it to 1gb ram among other things. I didnt find a huge performance increase but it certainly helped for loading larger apps and gaming improved a slight bit aswell, but it may be slightly biased as within 2 days i put in the ram, cpu and new graphics card so i didnt have much experience with just the ram upgrade. But yea you should notice things speed up a little.
 
1GB of RAM is good for that extra oomph for Windows XP. Unless you're running a Vista OS with Aero, anything above 1GB isn't NECESSARY unless you plan to go to Vista. I'd rather have 1GB of DDR2 1066 than 4GB of DDR2 800. I'd rather have the extra speed is what I'm saying.

Now, Vista runs smoothly with about 2GB of RAm and a decent graphics card. Like, 128MB onboard memory minimum.

Find out what the max speed your motherboard supports is, then get that. If your mobo supports dual channel, then pull the old stuff out, and put in 1GB of Dual Channel RAM in. Dual channel is especially nice to have if you have a dual core processor. Opens the old bottleneck wide open. So fast.

Right now, I have:

AMD 64 3400+ Venice 2.2ghz

ASUS A8R-MX board. 3 or 4 PCI slots, 1 PCI x1 slot, 1 PCI x16 slot and has SATA/IDE support and onboard RAID.

Freetech (Actually WinFast in a Leadtek box) Geforce 6200 128MB unlocked to 8 pipelines and overclocked to 600/675 on core/memory.

If you have any more questions, I'd be glad to help. Just shoot me a PM or drop me a message on AIM. fisherphdrider06 is my AIM tag.
 
It depends how many programs you have open. More ram will help. Really it's whether you're happy for fork out £50 for 1GB of it that's more important. If you're wishing you had more, it probably will help. What will it do? Well...

Say you have 500mb of ram (it's nearer that, usually). You can have 500mb of processes open in the ram. If you open anything more than that, some processes get stored on your hard drive. That's fine, until you want to use the program again - because your hard drive is slower than the ram, your program will take longer to respond (and therefore you'll find yourself shouting at the screen). So, if you have 700mb of processes running, 200mb of them will be on your hard drive and will take slower to open. Basically, the more programs you have open on your 512mb of ram, the more chances some will go reaaal slow. By increasing your ram, those programs that would be on your hard drive are now sitting there ready and waiting in your ram. Therefore, your PC will be quicker.

So yeah, it'll help if you're using more ram than you have. How do you work that out? Well, if you frequently get messages about virtual memory being too low, you're out of ram. A better way of telling is by opening up task manager and looking in the bottom right corner. You'll see something called "commit charge", which is basically how much memory your pc is using up. It's in the format processes-open-M/total-memory. Ignore the second numbers for now (since that includes your virtual memory on your hard drive), and concentrate on the first one. How much is it using? If it's close to or over 500, you could use some more. For example, with firefox and messenger open, mine is 473. If I had 500mb of ram, I wouldn't be able to open much more without it going slow, and therefore I could use some more ram. But, because I now have 1gb of ram, I can open a whole lot more without real delays. Geddit? :p


One small thing you'll want to note: it might cost you a little more than you'd think. Because you already have 512, you only have to buy another 512, right? Wrong. Most laptops have 2 slots for ram, which can take 1GB cards each. Instead of manufacturers putting one stick of 512 in one slot and nothing in the other, they put 256 in both. Thefore, you have to replace both of those sticks with two 512 sticks or one 1gb stick. See what I mean?
 
Thanks people!

(By the way, Im also mike1111, I just forgot my password at home so had to start a new user account).

I figured out a little while ago that I have two slots with one currently using a 512MB card. So I suppose thats a bonus!!??

The RAM that Ive seen around is Kingston RAM which is apparently the most common RAM around here for the Toshiba's?

Will it matter if my existing RAM is a slower speed than the new RAM? What will be the result of having two different speeds? Am I making sense? A post further up was talking about a preference between either 1GB RAM and 4GB and preferred the 1GB because it had a faster speed...

Yea it usually runs really slow if I have a spyware program running/scanning, MS Outlook (although idle) and say... trying to open folders on the desktop or windows explorer takes FOREVER!!!

I also was convinced into buying McAfee internet secutiry suite as the salesperson said Nortin AntiVirus takes up too much memory and slows the notebook down ALOT. But just looking at what applications load up on start-up, McAfee has about 10 or so applications it runs on start-up.

Do you guys reckon McAfee might be part of the problem? Start-up takes FOREVER on the notebook (once windows XP has loaded it still takes another 3-5 minutes before it has loaded all the applications) - keeping in mind I have already tried to disable any applications I dont want starting on startup.

Man computers are frustrating! :scared:

- by the way - I have shared 128MB graphics which may also contribute!
 
I meant that if the 1GB was faster, I would rather use that. I tend to not do video editing, photoshopping, and office tasks at the same time. Usually Internet and AIM/ICQ/MSN, or just editing and whatnot.

I run 512MB. Turn pagefile on for when I play Call of Duty.
 
mvandepas
Thanks people!

(By the way, Im also mike1111, I just forgot my password at home so had to start a new user account).

I figured out a little while ago that I have two slots with one currently using a 512MB card. So I suppose thats a bonus!!??

The RAM that Ive seen around is Kingston RAM which is apparently the most common RAM around here for the Toshiba's?

Will it matter if my existing RAM is a slower speed than the new RAM? What will be the result of having two different speeds? Am I making sense? A post further up was talking about a preference between either 1GB RAM and 4GB and preferred the 1GB because it had a faster speed...

Yea it usually runs really slow if I have a spyware program running/scanning, MS Outlook (although idle) and say... trying to open folders on the desktop or windows explorer takes FOREVER!!!

I also was convinced into buying McAfee internet secutiry suite as the salesperson said Nortin AntiVirus takes up too much memory and slows the notebook down ALOT. But just looking at what applications load up on start-up, McAfee has about 10 or so applications it runs on start-up.

Do you guys reckon McAfee might be part of the problem? Start-up takes FOREVER on the notebook (once windows XP has loaded it still takes another 3-5 minutes before it has loaded all the applications) - keeping in mind I have already tried to disable any applications I dont want starting on startup.

Man computers are frustrating! :scared:

- by the way - I have shared 128MB graphics which may also contribute!
Click to expand...
Get rid of McAfee imediately; it sucks. Download something like AVG Free, it'll do much better, and at the same time use less computer resources.
 
So Im Assuming This Must Be Bad??? My Current Commit Charge With Only Internet Explorer Is 422m / 1229m. This Means With My Current Applications Loaded, I Am Using 422 Of 512mb Right? So That Leaves Bugger All Ram For Anything Extra... Right?
 
That's crazy, with iTunes, outlook, IE7, and VLC media player (playing an avi video) my commit charge is only 382M. You must have a lot of things running in the background, like as you suggested mcaffee. I use sophos antivirus and am very happy with it, although i get it free through my mum's work, but it doesn't seem to be too resource hungry. But as burnout suggested AVG is an excellent piece of kit, especially for free. And yes definately seems like you could benefit with some more ram if you dont do anything too drastic.
 

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