How to work out how much memory you can have

[Guest]

Have a Dell Studio Hybrid and have a feeling I need more memory, the book says it has Capacities for 512MB 1GB and 2GB .
It has 2GB its a 32 Bit system .
I believe it has 2 slots?
Is it possible to upgrade it to 4GB? and would I be able to either take the existing memory out and replace it with 4GB or add another 2GB if there is a spare slot?
What would you recommend ? and more importantly I believe you can go online where they check your system and you can also buy the memory from them .

[TrevorFranklin]

The amount and type of memory depends on the motherboard that is fitted in your system.
The easiest option for you is to use the Crucial Memory site
http://www.crucial.com/uk/systemscanner/ and use their online scanner, this will tell you what you have installed and what you can upgrade to. It is safe to download etc
But to be honest, if you are only using your system as an 'office' machine and not heavy on video or image editing, 2GB is more than enough for your needs.

You need to make sure that memory that you install is 'matched pairs', which means that it is the same make and type of memory, as different makers may have memory that runs slightly different and could cause you a system problem

[Guest]

thanks Trevor once again , as this PC is running really slowly thought it might be to do with the photos I have on here do have rather a lot, maybe its another problem then ??

[col48]

Val Most common causes are disk needs defragmenting or too many programs running - for instance lots in StartUp Menu. Some programs have the cheek to insert themselves there when you install them, as if they are the most important thing you'll ever need and will be running them all the time!

[Guest]

Thanks for your reply Col , I did wonder if it was that and did the lot the other night including scanning the discs for errors ,the problem seems to be more with IE ,and I do prefer that for certain sites .
I'm never really sure what to let start up or not ???

[TrevorFranklin]

val,

Download and install CCleaner (It's safe)

http://www.piriform.com/CCLEANER

1. Run the program using its default settings for the 'cleaner' option
This should clear out a lot of temp files etc that could be causing issues

2. Use the Tools > Start Up option to get a list of your programs that are loading on start up and select the choice at the bottom right to save as a text file.
Email this to me at skippy5@supanet.com (I'm not worried about giving an email address over open connection, as it is my 'anti spam' email address) and I will look over what you have running for you.

Do you have lots of these 'browser toolbars' added to your IE application, they can really cause systems to slow, as they are communicating in the background which causes delays.


The fact that you have many photos is irrelevant, as these are only electronic 0's and 1's on your disk and are no different to any other file untill you actually open them, which needs resources to turn them into images on your screen.

Trev

[Guest]

hi Trevor I do run Ccleaner every night before I shut down, am sending you the start up list now thanks very much

[Guest]

I did download the IE 9 today to see if that makes a difference but didn't really, not really sure what Browser Toolbars I have, think its just Google

[col48]

Trev
Does Ccleaner clean up the registry? I think a clogged up registry can slow a machine. It's some years since I used Windows, and I always said "why?" rather than "why not?" when offered software, so never had much problem with clutter - except for the number of my own data files, but that's another story!

[Guest]

Col I clean my registry every night when I use Ccleaner ,as long as you do a back up which it asks if you want to do then its fine.

[TrevorFranklin]

Trev
Does Ccleaner clean up the registry? I think a clogged up registry can slow a machine. It's some years since I used Windows, and I always said "why?" rather than "why not?" when offered software, so never had much problem with clutter - except for the number of my own data files, but that's another story!

The registry is an important part of Windows, it has many tiny files that tell it how to do things, sometimes these can be fragmented in where they are stored on the hard drive, which SUPPOSIDY slows your system.
In modern systems this is a complete myth, the files are so tiny that the 'delay' is nano seconds (millionths of a second) which you would never detect.

My personal opinion is not to use ‘registry’ cleaners, as there is a risk that something critical could be deleted. Even with a back up (Ccleaners offers the option to create one), if this cleaner made your system unstable, you would not be able to repair the registry without the technical knowledge to do so in the first place.

Ccleaner is great for removing all the temporary files that are stored on your computer when a program is installing or when you visit web pages (all the images etc), that use up storage space, but this is only an issue if you get down to less than 30% of your disk space left, otherwise cleaning these is not important.

Defragging your drive was an urgent task on old systems, but again, with modern operating systems (such as Windows7), the disk management that is built into the application will do the job a basic person needs without you even knowing it is doing it.

All these fixer programs and defragmenters, if used to much, actually increase the risk of data being damaged, as everytime they are run if they ‘hicup’ during the process, data will end up corrupt.


My regular chant I keep posting is…………………………….
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!!

[Guest]

thanks Trevor have sent you an email.

[TrevorFranklin]

Disable the programs I highlighted to you from running at startup, do not delete them

Trev

[col48]

Comment on Registry

I was never a fan of the Registry. Some programs stored option choices there which were very hard to change by any means other than a registry editor, with all its dangers. Because registry values were usually stored very deep inside the registry they were not necessarily removed if the program was uninstalled and certainly not if it was deleted. With so much clutter it is harder to spot harmful entries. Values critical to the operation of Windows itself were stored along with relatively trivial ones.

'If if ain't broke, don't fix it' - but here it was a case of 'If it's broke, make it hard to prove it, hard to fix and easy to break something else at the same time'.

Rant over!

[Guest]

did that thanks Trevor just wanted to confirm I had done all the ones you suggested. thanks again