How do I check my RAM?

C

CCOVICH

Registered User
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No, not the wooly one in the field .

I'm using Belarc, where do I look to see how much RAM I have installed?

I haven't been able to get a reliable spec. for my laptop (i.e. any spec I get doesn't really match what is actually in the machine).

Thanks.
 
If you are running windows go to:
Settings > Control Panel > System

Double-clicking on the "System" icon will bring up a summary of your PC including the amount of RAM installed
 
Thanks for that. It looks like I have 2 slots of 256 MB each.

I currently have a 30GB hard drive, and am considering expanding to anything from 100 to 200 GB through an external drive.

If my used capacity increased by, say, 100 GB to 130 GB, would a Celeron 2.8 and the 504 MB of RAM that I have be sufficient to operate at reasonable speeds, or would there be a significant decrease in performance? Is there a rule of thumb for the amount of RAM and processor speed you need for a given amount of used (hard drive) memory?
 
The size of your hard drive has nothing to do with the speed of your processor

Your hard drive is for storage of data (files etc).
 
blacknight said:
The size of your hard drive has nothing to do with the speed of your processor

Your hard drive is for storage of data (files etc).
Click to expand...

Thanks again. I am aware that the hard drive is for storage, but I thought that the more you have stored, the more demands on your processor, or are the two totally unrelated?
 
CCOVICH said:
Thanks again. I am aware that the hard drive is for storage, but I thought that the more you have stored, the more demands on your processor, or are the two totally unrelated?
Click to expand...

I'm sure Clubman or someone else might be able to give a more definitive answer but AFAIK the amount stored on your hard drive has little or no impact on the demands on your processor. The only thing that might effect performance is that if files on the drive become framented it might take longer to find the fragments on a bigger drive, but periodic running of the defragmenting tool in Windows should help avoid this becoming an issue.
 
The two are totally unrelated.

If you are concerned about performance get more RAM. You can never have too much
 
CCOVICH - the hard drive (as outlined above) is for storing files. RAM is for processing those files. If you don't do anything with the files then they sit there and have no impact on performance. If you read/write those files constantly then there is an impact on performance.

A real world equivalent would be to imagine your hard drive as a filing cabinet. You (combination of RAM/CPU and a whole host of other things, but RAM for these purposes) go looking for a file in a small filing cabinet and it takes you a few seconds. Then you have to put the file down and go look for another. Put that down and go looking for another, etc . . .

Now imagine instead of a single filing cabinet you are looking in a warehouse full of filing cabinets. It will take a lot longer to find each file. In the hard drive world this is speeded up somewhat by other elements like caching and indexing but the analogy holds pretty true.

If you have a warehouse full of filing cabinets you can access a whole series of files a whole lot faster if you have more people going looking for the files at the same time. This is the equivalent of adding more RAM when accessing a large hard drive.

Of course, if 99% the warehouse full of files isn't accessed then having all these extra people isn't going to add a whole lot to the experience since they will be twiddling their thumbs most of the time.

z
 

Great piece. This is what I was getting at when asking if I increased the the amount of files stored (and used), would I need more processing capability.

Should this be stickied?
 
If you are looking to see what type of memory modules are compatible with your PC in anticipation of an upgrade then use the online memory configuration tools on the various memory vendors' sites (e.g. Kingston, Crucial, [broken link removed] etc.) which will recommed compatible memory for your system/motherboard. Crucial's EU site is good for buying from as they offer a money back return guarantee if the memory suggested does not work/is not compatible. Other sites may also offer similar guarantees.

Lavalys Everest is a useful tool for analysing your hardware in detail. The free home edition has been discontinued but you will probably find it or its predecessor AIDA32 available for download somewhere on the web. CPU-Z is another useful hardware inventory/analysis utility.
 
One point to note, if you are adding an external HDD, and using it to store & access large files routinely, then consider using an external DHH with a firewire connection and get a firewire connection for your PC, this is loads faster than USB. (I learned this recently via this site....).

Its a good idea to defrag your disks every few months, stops the clutter spoken of earlier in this thread.
 
Not necessarily true. USB 2.0 is actually nominally faster than FireWire 400 (480Mbps versus 400Mbps) but, in practice, should perform about the same - c. 400Mbps. See this post in this thread. Maybe you're comparing USB 1.1 (12Mbps) with FireWire in which case the speed difference would indeed be significant. USB 1.1 should not be used for high speed/throughput devices!
 
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