I bought a computer a year ago with 512MB DDR SDRAM. I then installed the FreeMemory Program and just recently it shows that it has gone down to 215 MB. A friend of mine told me that if it goes below half of what RAM you have, then you should be worried.
My computer is definitley running slower even though I have gone through and deleted a lot of programs and needless things I had downloaded.
Do I need to get more memory or how do I Free up some of what I already have?
I’m not familiar with the program you describe, but your friend’s advice sounds bogus - if you expect half your memory to remain unused at all times, what is the point in having it?
Windows makes use of memory - if your memory was completely full up and your hard drive is clicking away like the clappers, then you would indeed have a problem because this would indicate that Windows was using the disk drive to simulate the extra memory it needs and because drives are much slower, performance would suffer.
If your computer is running slower generally, I’d check for spyware (try Ad-Aware from www.lavasoft.de )
When you start up programs, they load themselves into memory - this allows for faster switching back and forth and faster program performance.
I’d say, with Windows XP, you’d want to obtain Ad Aware (if you don’t already have it). There are some programs that can be installed or running without your knowledge - or they take advantage of inexperienced computer users. Make sure there isn’t anything in your Startup menu that you don’t want running all the time, because those programs take memory.
I’ll put it this way… you have a 20 gb hard drive. Are you worried that you only have 10 gb free and immediately go out and buy another hard drive? It’s just a different type of resource. If you showed 0 memory free it would be a different story.
Nonsense. First, you don’t need any fancy programs to see how much memory is free. Hit ctrl-alt-del, then push the Taskmanager button. The Performance tab will show you how much RAM is installed, and how much you are currently using. If you have 215 MB still free, you’re doing fine.
A slower running computer is not usually the result of too many programs or downloaded things on your hard drive. It is the result of what you are running right now, and how much processor time and memory those programs are using. What you should look at is the Processes tab in the aforementioned task manager. Sort by the CPU column, and you’ll see what’s eating up processor cycles, if anything.
More often than not, what slows down the machine are the many many little “extras” people install on their machine that run constantly. Things that reside in the system tray (the tiny icons next to the clock) are usual culprits. That and you might have just gotten used to your “once-fast” computer, and now it just seems slow.
512MB of ram is a healthy amount for your average computer user, unless they’re opening lots of programs and documents simutaneously, and in that case, you wouldn’t have any free memory. The fact that you have 212MB ram free indicates to me that you do not have a memory deficit. In any case, deleting stuff on your hard drive will not affect this number.