Computer help...Memory ??

[Bagpuss]

Hiya ... i have searched about on the net but its all so complicated...my computer flashed up a message saying something about running on low memory...it went before i had time to read it properly.

anyway...i don't know if it meant RAM or virtual memory....????

I have xp home and 256mb

local disk says... total 34.GB
used 11.GB
free 23.GB

virtual memory set to 767mb
custom 384mb

don't know what i am writing down here, it means nothing to me at all, its just all i could fine and thought it might help.

help !!!

 

[pips]

Im not up on pc terms either but before i got my new pc i used to get a message saying memory running low and the pc used to increase it.

Maybe seanny or ruth could shed some light on it, hope you get it sorted chick.

P.S I dont think its anything to worry about, well i never worried any how lol:lol:

 

[Joannesnails]

That message comes up on my computer sometimes, it means the memory is low on your computer once that comes up your computer automaticly sorts itself out, absoloutly nothing to worry about its just a little thing to tell you its low but then sorts itself out x hths was kind of hard to explain but hope you understand what im saying

 

[Seanny]

hi Bagpuss, you're more than likely just trying to run too many programs at one time or else one of your running programs has temporarily become corrupt. Just reboot your machine and everything should be fine. If the message continues to appear after that, you may need to take further action.


256 mb (this is Ram, you can add more) is not a lot of memory in this modern age. Software writers are increasingly adding more bells and whistles to their programs and in turn computers have had to become more powerful in order to run them properly. Most computers on sale these days come with a minimum od 1gb of memory, thats 4 times as much as you have, so it might be an idea to install some more.

In the meantime, your computer sounds to me like its struggling to cope with whatever programs you're trying to run. A temporary fix may just be to cut down on the number of things working in the background on your mmachine. Things like virus checkers, adware checkers, etc all soak up pc resources but they are a necessary requirement, however there are lots of other programs that can continue running in the background when you dont want them to, some of them can be malicious or at least unwanted. You should ask a knowledgeable friend to check your computer when you can, this just a suggestion, no need to worry about it.

Your other details look good:
34 gb is the size of your hard drive and you've still got 23 gb free, thats oodles of space, incidentally this is where all your programs, files, photos, documents, etc are stored. Its completely seperate from memory, think of it more in real estate, ie, a place to put something. It stays there permanently. Ram, on the other hand is short term memory, it only holds stuff temporarily, once you switch your machine off, everything in ram is removed.

Virtual memory is a small amount of your hard drive which has been allocated by your computer to assist the ram. Its a bit difficult to explain here without going into detail, suffice to say that its normally best to just use the automatic settings. No need to bother with this.

 

[Bagpuss]

hi Bagpuss, you're more than likely just trying to run too many programs at one time or else one of your running programs has temporarily become corrupt. Just reboot your machine and everything should be fine. If the message continues to appear after that, you may need to take further action.


256 mb (this is Ram, you can add more) is not a lot of memory in this modern age. Software writers are increasingly adding more bells and whistles to their programs and in turn computers have had to become more powerful in order to run them properly. Most computers on sale these days come with a minimum od 1gb of memory, thats 4 times as much as you have, so it might be an idea to install some more. how would i do this ??

In the meantime, your computer sounds to me like its struggling to cope with whatever programs you're trying to run. A temporary fix may just be to cut down on the number of things working in the background on your mmachine. Things like virus checkers, adware checkers, etc all soak up pc resources but they are a necessary requirement, however there are lots of other programs that can continue running in the background when you dont want them to, some of them can be malicious or at least unwanted. You should ask a knowledgeable friend to check your computer when you can, this just a suggestion, no need to worry about it.

Your other details look good:
34 gb is the size of your hard drive and you've still got 23 gb free, thats oodles of space, incidentally this is where all your programs, files, photos, documents, etc are stored. Its completely seperate from memory, think of it more in real estate, ie, a place to put something. It stays there permanently. Ram, on the other hand is short term memory, it only holds stuff temporarily, once you switch your machine off, everything in ram is removed.

Virtual memory is a small amount of your hard drive which has been allocated by your computer to assist the ram. Its a bit difficult to explain here without going into detail, suffice to say that its normally best to just use the automatic settings. No need to bother with this.

so when i looked on the net and found info about increasing the size of memory by going to my comp, propities, advanced, performance, settings, advanced and change the amount....i dont need to...(i didnt dare anyway :lol

I will re-boot and leave it then...thanks hun :hug:

 

[Seanny]

Angie, if you've ever seen the inside of a computer, ie, motherboard, video card, etc, its fairly easy for you or someone you know with a little bit of computer experience to fit new memory, just be sure to get the proper type. It comes in small rectangular chips just a few inches long and you simply click it into place into fixed slots on the motherboard.


If you do fit extra memory, I swear you'll think you've got a brand new machine, its fairly cheap too. If you dont know what the inside of a computer looks like, give your local pc shop a ring and ask them how much they charge to supply and fit 1 gigabyte of ram for you. Its probably the single biggest difference you can make to a pc's performance.

 

[Ruth Mills]

Seanny's already put it better than I could have done - 256MB seems not that much memory at all these days with Windows XP, especially if you are running lots of different programs at the same time - "virtual memory" is where your computer uses some of the space on your hard drive as if it were extra memory on your system - the problem there is that accessing your hard drive is a *lot* slower than accessing memory chips - especially if the computer is having to "swap" a lot (i.e. moving data between memory and the hard drive).

From experience, I'd say that upgrading your system memory to, say, 1GB, will probably make your system run like a rocket in comparison to how it is likely running now.

I'd recommend Crucial for ordering memory from too, Memory upgrades, flash media, and usb storage at Crucial.com - they even have a web page that will automatically check your motherboard and work out which memory is compatible with your system - they are also very reasonably priced.

 

[Bagpuss]

i am way out of my depth here....i looked at that website Ruth and it picked out what i would need but its American and how does it all work...i am very dubious about downloading anything or installing anything..

 

[Bagpuss]

my computer is dell...do you think if i take it to pc world or something they would do it...?

 

[nailzoo]

256 ram is the equivelent of expecting to hear a sparrow fart from 500 yards away, get a gig (it costs nothing these days). You probably should get a bigger hard drive (Most people should).

Sometimes it's cheaper to get a whole new system, whatever you buy, whatever you do, it will be outdated the next day.

 

[sian1979]

I am sure if you went to pc world that they would sort it for you.....but personally I cant stand them....they are all sales orientated and dont care how they get them. You will probably end up coming away with a load of stuff on your pc that was not a necessity. I would go and find a small local shop near where you live, a one man band.....who has been working on computers for 30yrs and get them to do it for you....that way then if you have any probs in the future then you will be able to go back to the same person.

 

[nailzoo]

I am sure if you went to pc world that they would sort it for you.....but personally I cant stand them....they are all sales orientated and dont care how they get them. You will probably end up coming away with a load of stuff on your pc that was not a necessity. I would go and find a small local shop near where you live, a one man band.....who has been working on computers for 30yrs and get them to do it for you....that way then if you have any probs in the future then you will be able to go back to the same person.

Kinda like getting your nails done with a particular brand ........ it's all coming together now

 

[Ruth Mills]

i am way out of my depth here....i looked at that website Ruth and it picked out what i would need but its American and how does it all work...i am very dubious about downloading anything or installing anything..

Sorry - I should have given you the UK address for Crucial, Memory upgrades, flash media, and usb storage at Crucial.com - it should be in pounds now rather than dollars!

The memory checker *does* ask you to install an ActiveX control, but even though I would not normally do this for any Tom, **** or Harry's site, I am 100% sure that the Crucial one is kosher, and I've run it on my own computers in the past with no ill effects.

As for installation - I'd be inclined to be somewhat wary of PC World because they'd probably want to sell you their own memory (which would likely be a fair bit more expensive than Crucial) - if I wasn't happy installing memory myself, then I'd find a local computer guy to do it for me. If you were anywhere near Shrewsbury, I'd be happy to install it for you for free.

 

[beautyseeker]

Mine is Dell and still under warranty, they are very helpful. When mine went screwy I phoned them up, best to phone at 8.00 am wont have to wait too long. They fixed it online - they took it over from their end and, well, fixed it. Its been fab ever since. I would not hesitate to contact them, ever. Also when daughter managed to break LCD screen the man cameout the next day to fix it. Give them a go.

:hug:

 

[Bagpuss]

Thanks everyone for all your help....

I did the scan thing Ruth and this is what it said...

Currently installed memory:



256MBDDR PC2700 EMPTY

Each memory slot can hold DDR PC2700,DDR PC3200 with a maximum of 1GB per slot.*



*Not to exceed manufacturer supported memory.
Maximum Memory Capacity: 2048MB
Currently Installed Memory: 256MB
Available Memory Slots: 1
Number of Banks: 2
Dual Channel Support: No
CPU Manufacturer: GenuineIntel
CPU Family: Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.40GHz Model 2, Stepping 9
CPU Speed: 2392 MHz


it also showed recommended memory I can buy but I still wouldn't know what to do with it if i got it...:lol:

 

[Seanny]

Angie, you need to install one of the following:

(1) you can remove your present memory chip and replace it with a chip that is bigger in size than the one you already have, ie, larger than 256mb. That can be 512mb, 1 gb or 2gb. Bigger is ALWAYS better in the memory dept.

or

(2) you can add an identical chip to the one you presently have, ie, another chip that is 256mb.

The best option is to install the most memory that you can. In your case this is 2 gigabytes of memory. If you cant stretch to 2 gigabytes (gigs) 1gb should be sufficient. By the way, as Ruth has pointed out, Crucial will probably supply memory cheaper than most other places and yes, they can be trusted.

 

[Ruth Mills]

My recommendation would be to order a 1GB chip and use that alongside your existing 256MB chip, this would give you a total of 1280MB. If you still found that wasn't enough, then you could replace the 256MB chip with another 1GB chip, giving you 2GB altogether.

I don't think there's a requirement to use identically sized memory chips if using more than one chip; Sonia's laptop has the original 256MB chip plus an additional 512MB chip, giving her 768MB total, and that works just fine.

 

[Seanny]

My recommendation would be to order a 1GB chip and use that alongside your existing 256MB chip, this would give you a total of 1280MB. If you still found that wasn't enough, then you could replace the 256MB chip with another 1GB chip, giving you 2GB altogether.

I don't think there's a requirement to use identically sized memory chips if using more than one chip; Sonia's laptop has the original 256MB chip plus an additional 512MB chip, giving her 768MB total, and that works just fine.

My understanding was you had to use two identical size chips but its been a while since I personally added memory, I could be wrong......certainly wouldnt be the first time. lol

 

[Ruth Mills]

I don't think you need to use identically sized memory chips with DDR or DDR2 modules; I thought the only requirement was to use the same sort of memory as what was in there already, e.g. if your motherboard supports ECC (Error Correction Code) memory then either all your chips need to be ECC, or they all need to be non-ECC, but you can't use a mixture of both (but now we are getting on to quite serious geekery, and most motherboards these days don't support ECC anyway).

 

[Seanny]

I bow to Ruths superior knowledge....and no, I'm not being smart in my usual way. Thanks for your input here Ruth.