<p>i just got a 512 mb stick of ram. so now i have a total 1024 mb (~1 gb) of ram on my laptop. i havent seen any drastic changes though in the speed of the computer. all i did was swipe the stick into its slot and turned on the computer. was i supposed to install anything else??? and it does confirm that there is indeed 1024 mb of ram when i go to my computer system settings.
is this normal?</p>
<p>RAM is mainly used for multitasking, like playing games while surfing the net while chatting on aim, etc. try doing that, and you'll see a noticeable difference. the speed of the computer, like opening up applications, is the processor's job.</p>
<p>If it does truly work, you should see a difference when using photoshop, or anything else really..... What do you use your laptop for?</p>
<p>i see sort of an improvement (i had itunes, microsoft word, and the internet playing all at once, and my laptop didnt freeze up :) ). though when i copy a large file from my c drive to my desktop, it doesnt seem to have a faster transfer rate.</p>
<p>I think thats your processor speed that determine how fast you copy files.</p>
<p>btw i have a 2.8 ghz intel pentium 4 processor with 15 gb of harddrive free (total harddrive is a 30gb)</p>
<p>everything that has to do with speed is controlled by the processor. everything that has to do with how many applications you can run without freeze is RAM</p>
<p>i was looking more in detail at my computer system and i found two numbers for my CPU: 2.8 and 1.6.</p>
<p>here it is:
<a href="http://i2.tinypic.com/vd382f.jpg%5B/url%5D">http://i2.tinypic.com/vd382f.jpg</a></p>
<p>why are there two numbers? which number corresponds to my actual cpu speed?</p>
<ul>
<li>Your new ram matches the speed of your original ram, right?</li>
<li>A 30 G hard drive is probably running at 4200RPM which is slow. You may want to consider upgrading to a more typical 5400 RPM unit. See the following article: <a href="http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2603%5B/url%5D">http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2603</a></li>
<li>file copying is more a function of hard drive speed than memory amount (presuming that you have 512 to begin with...).</li>
<li>Be sure to de-frag your hard drive for optimum performance.</li>
</ul>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>michuncle:
*to answer ur first question, i started off with 512 mb of ram and added another 512 stick of ram to that for a total of 1024 mb of ram.
*secondly i am not sure how much RPM i am running my computer at.
*here are specs of my laptop: <a href="http://reviews.cnet.com/Dell_Inspiron_1150/4507-3121_7-30836485.html%5B/url%5D">http://reviews.cnet.com/Dell_Inspiron_1150/4507-3121_7-30836485.html</a></p>
<p>theripcurl,</p>
<p>That wasn't the question. There are different speeds of RAM. </p>
<p>It's probably a slow hard drive, at any rate, that's causing your slow file transfers.</p>
<p>
[quote]
everything that has to do with speed is controlled by the processor. everything that has to do with how many applications you can run without freeze is RAM
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Not necessarily true. The speed and latency of RAM has a small, but noticeable, effect on how programs perform.</p>
<p>The speed of copying files is usually determined by your Harddrive's speed.</p>
<p>get a vaio...its the faster processing computer there is :)
my one is a 3.2 dual processors</p>
<p>so what does the 1.6 ghz represent then?</p>
<p>1.6 Ghz represents the speed of the PROCESSOR. The RAM has its own clock speed as well. Some RAM is faster than other RAM.</p>
<p>whoa 1.6Ghz is pretty slow... you need to upgrade</p>
<p>if 1.6 ghz is the processor's speed, then the 2.8ghz represents what?</p>
<p>My computer will be a 1.83ghz so I don't think 1.6 is all that slow. But windows sucks and always goes slower than macs running at the same speed anyways :p</p>
<p>BestMiler,</p>
<p>Not necessarily. 1.6 Ghz is more than sufficient for most day-to-day tasks. There's little reason to upgrade unless you're doing very processor heavy tasks (some gaming, encoding, etc.)</p>
<p>Otherwise, it's fine. For file copying/moving, the speed of the hard disk is more important than the processor.</p>