Upgrading My PC's RAM

[racketboy]

I have an older machine that I built myself.
It's a 2.4GHz Pentium 4 that currently has 1GB or RAM.
I'm running XP and plan to keep it that way.

I also don't think it's worth my money to buy a new machine as dual core would be the only advantage in my mind.

My machine performs pretty well for my typical Firefox & Photoshop work. However, I'm thinking I may want to upgrade my RAM for when things get bogged down.

My motherboard has 4 RAM slots -- two of which are taken up with 512MB sticks.
Supposedly, performance is better for the RAM if you have two equal pairs of RAM.
So my question is, what would be the best value for me to add?

1X 512MB = $32
2X 512MB = $64
1X 1GB = $60
2X 1GB = $120

[Mozgus]

Uh, first you need to run some monitoring apps, or the one XP provides, and inspect the RAM usage during a typical day. I can't imagine you are using up all of your 1GB of RAM just browsing the net and editing your relatively simple (no offense at all) site graphics. If you're looking for a solution to the bog down you're having, look towards optimizing XP, or getting a better CPU by any means. Pentium 4's arent all that great.

Required reading: http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html

[raztat]

if you have the money get the 2 1 gig stick, if not i think another 512 stick should do just fine.

[Mozgus]

Oh and the "supposedly" you referred to is called dual channel. It's when you have 1 or 2 pairs of identicle sticks inserted in the right order in your board, as the manual indicates. Dual channel is commonplace in nearly all motherboards now, but you must read the instructions for activating it. It can even involve paying attention to chip counts on the ram itself. Your best bet it to stick with 2 sticks, as many boards support fewer 4 stick setups than 2 stick when it comes to dual channel.

Oh and dual channel, from what I remember, simply (in theory) multiplies the speed of the RAM by two similar to a hard drive RAID-0 setup.

But really, I doubt this will cure any slowdowns you are having. Dual channel isn't what it was originally hyped up to be, as most people will tell you. If your board supports it, use it, but dont spend any additional money to gain access to it.

[racketboy]

Uh, first you need to run some monitoring apps, or the one XP provides, and inspect the RAM usage during a typical day. I can't imagine you are using up all of your 1GB of RAM just browsing the net and editing your relatively simple (no offense at all) site graphics. If you're looking for a solution to the bog down you're having, look towards optimizing XP, or getting a better CPU by any means. Pentium 4's arent all that great.

Required reading: http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html

Well a new CPU requires new mobo and RAM. I'm a cheapskate and that's not worth my time and money.


Firefox is the biggest memory hog -- I know that already. Since I have so many tabs/windows open, I routinely have to end the Firefox process and let the session restore open them back up. But that gets old and it just eats up RAM again.

Firefox gets up to about 650MB sometimes....

[Mozgus]

Firefox is the biggest memory hog -- I know that already. Since I have so many tabs/windows open, I routinely have to end the Firefox process and let the session restore open them back up. But that gets old and it just eats up RAM again.

Firefox gets up to about 650MB sometimes....

...That's unheard of on my end. You upgrade FireFox in the last....3 years? Because memory leaks should be cured now. I think your comp has crabs. Something is going on behind the scenes. When's the last time you formatted?

Also, tell me what sites cause such crazy RAM usage. I'll go to them right now and share a screenshot.

[racketboy]

Firefox is the biggest memory hog -- I know that already. Since I have so many tabs/windows open, I routinely have to end the Firefox process and let the session restore open them back up. But that gets old and it just eats up RAM again.

Firefox gets up to about 650MB sometimes....

...That's unheard of on my end. You upgrade FireFox in the last....3 years? Because memory leaks should be cured now. I think your comp has crabs. Something is going on behind the scenes. When's the last time you formatted?

Also, tell me what sites cause such crazy RAM usage. I'll go to them right now and share a screenshot.

It's not just my main PC -- I get the same thing on my Laptop's Firefox. It's kinda hard to deterimine the sites exactly, but sites with Flash seem to do it a lot. Graphics-heavy sites like DeviantArt seem to load it up as well.

I have a very current version of FF that auto-updates. I don't have very many extensions either...

I did a fresh Windows install just a few months ago...

I experimented with Opera as well since it's supposed to be more lightweight. It did the same memory hogging after being left open with tons of tabs for a few days.

Keep in mind, given the nature of my side work, I do a lot of surfing and never close Firefox or reboot unless I have to.

[Mozgus]

It's not just my main PC -- I get the same thing on my Laptop's Firefox. It's kinda hard to deterimine the sites exactly, but sites with Flash seem to do it a lot. Graphics-heavy sites like DeviantArt seem to load it up as well.

I have a very current version of FF that auto-updates. I don't have very many extensions either...

I did a fresh Windows install just a few months ago...

I experimented with Opera as well since it's supposed to be more lightweight. It did the same memory hogging after being left open with tons of tabs for a few days.

Keep in mind, given the nature of my side work, I do a lot of surfing and never close Firefox or reboot unless I have to.

Well, 29 sites opened simultaneously, fully loaded, 135MB usage. What can I tell you?


Buy more RAM if you want, but you have a software issue first and foremost. I mean I go to sites with heavy flash, and deviantart, and I let the browser stay on for many hours. I don't get these issues.

[racketboy]

It's not just my main PC -- I get the same thing on my Laptop's Firefox. It's kinda hard to deterimine the sites exactly, but sites with Flash seem to do it a lot. Graphics-heavy sites like DeviantArt seem to load it up as well.

I have a very current version of FF that auto-updates. I don't have very many extensions either...

I did a fresh Windows install just a few months ago...

I experimented with Opera as well since it's supposed to be more lightweight. It did the same memory hogging after being left open with tons of tabs for a few days.

Keep in mind, given the nature of my side work, I do a lot of surfing and never close Firefox or reboot unless I have to.

Well, 29 sites opened simultaneously, fully loaded, 135MB usage. What can I tell you?


Buy more RAM if you want, but you have a software issue first and foremost. I mean I go to sites with heavy flash, and deviantart, and I let the browser stay on for many hours. I don't get these issues.

How long have you had that session running? I probably have more like 40 tabs open when I get up higher.

This isn't just a Windows thing. If I don't have firefox running at all, things are pretty nice. The only other hog is AutoGK and it's associated programs when I'm converting stuff to Xvid. Of course, it needs the RAM to work with chunks of video.

Just an FYI, I only have 4 tabs open here at work (different PC) and FF is using 90+MB of RAM

[Mozgus]

I just don't know what to tell you, other than my own usage. 1GB should be plenty for a casual user on XP. In fact, it's overkill. Let's wait for Lord to jump in.