Most of you probably realize that I am just about computer illiterate, and do well to turn the darn thing on. Recently I got a new laptop, which runs Windows 7. Compared to my old XP machine, it has been a royal PITA. Slow to load, slow to reload, slow to do anything. I broke down, and took a gamble. Bought an 8 gig ram upgrade, from the existing 2 gig that came with the laptop. WOW Now there is a whole new world out there. Much faster, and much more stable. About the best 50 bucks ever spent. About two minutes to install, even I managed it. I have no ties to this company, but the memory came from a co. called Crucial. Can find them at crucial.com. They even have a little finder that makes it easy. Just type in the make and model of your computer, it will show you what you have, how much you can add, and how much it costs. Shipping is even free. Yep, I am a happy camper.
computer stuff NSR
- Thread starter juslookin
- Start date
- Status
some of us never come out of the closet.
I'm thinking you probably had a poor childhood that repressed your natural tendencies to be a geek.
You should embrace your uniqueness
Now, do you have a Borg designation? Mine is 7 of 6.
I'm thinking you probably had a poor childhood that repressed your natural tendencies to be a geek.
You should embrace your uniqueness
Now, do you have a Borg designation? Mine is 7 of 6.
As an IT professional, I can say that most end user performance problems are tied to lack of RAM on the computer... That said, 8 GB is overkill for an average end user to have, I would suggest the average home user to run around 3-4 GB of RAM on their computer unless they are doing more intensive things with it. If you open task manager, you'll be able to see how much RAM you are actually using on the performance tab (look at the line called Available, or even easier if you have Windows Vista or 7, it will have at the very bottom of the window Physical Memory: xx%)
You should ideally never be using more than 75% of your physical memory, if you do windows will start to degrade it's performance to maintain a buffer of free memory so that new programs can start. If it gets really bad you may see a message pop up about windows increasing the size of your page file, that's a sign that you a WAY overdue for a RAM upgrade on the computer, or some program is going haywire and using up all your RAM.
Enough tech stuff, back to sailing!
You should ideally never be using more than 75% of your physical memory, if you do windows will start to degrade it's performance to maintain a buffer of free memory so that new programs can start. If it gets really bad you may see a message pop up about windows increasing the size of your page file, that's a sign that you a WAY overdue for a RAM upgrade on the computer, or some program is going haywire and using up all your RAM.
Enough tech stuff, back to sailing!
Last edited:
That is correct, but it applies to all 32 bit vs 64 bit operating systems not just Windows 7
OVerkill maybe
When I pulled up the Critical website, it told me what I had, and what was available. The max was 8gigs, and I had 2. Of course they recommended the 8gig upgrade. No surprise there. But what was available was either 4 or 8 gigs. Difference in cost wasn't much, so I went for the biggest. Any sailor should be able to relate to that.
When I pulled up the Critical website, it told me what I had, and what was available. The max was 8gigs, and I had 2. Of course they recommended the 8gig upgrade. No surprise there. But what was available was either 4 or 8 gigs. Difference in cost wasn't much, so I went for the biggest. Any sailor should be able to relate to that.
If you are not running a 64 bit operating system than windows will not even see more than 4 GB in the computer as it cannot count any higher. If you are running a 64 bit operating system, then all 8 GB will be available to windows (assuming your computer doesn't rape your performance by shareing some of it with the video card).
Having more RAM than you need will only hurt your pocketbook, so if you're not concerned with the few extra dollars, it won't hurt having the extra there (but then again, it wont really help either).
Ideally for the average user you should check your RAM usage when you have a normal complement of programs open, and it should be hovering around 50% usage.
Much more and you'll likley run into times when you are doing more than normal and the computer has trouble keeping up... Much less than 50%, and you just are under utilizing things, and that means money was spent but not giving you any benefit.
Personally I do run 8 GB of RAM (plus another GB dedicated for video RAM), but that's because I run 3 monitors off my computer at my desk, often have numerous connections open to other servers that I'm working on, and I also run as many as 3 virtual machines at a time for testing. Far more load than the average user. I could at times use even more, but not too often.
Having more RAM than you need will only hurt your pocketbook, so if you're not concerned with the few extra dollars, it won't hurt having the extra there (but then again, it wont really help either).
Ideally for the average user you should check your RAM usage when you have a normal complement of programs open, and it should be hovering around 50% usage.
Much more and you'll likley run into times when you are doing more than normal and the computer has trouble keeping up... Much less than 50%, and you just are under utilizing things, and that means money was spent but not giving you any benefit.
Personally I do run 8 GB of RAM (plus another GB dedicated for video RAM), but that's because I run 3 monitors off my computer at my desk, often have numerous connections open to other servers that I'm working on, and I also run as many as 3 virtual machines at a time for testing. Far more load than the average user. I could at times use even more, but not too often.
- Status