Expert: Ran - 7/27/2009

Question
QUESTION: Hi Ran, hope you're having an awesome summer!
My question this time is about RAM.  My laptop is about 4-5 years old but its a good one - When it was purchased it was intended for business travel with the main usage being powerpoint presentations.  Now used for ArcView 9 and CorelDraw Graphics Suite X3 I think memory may be the issue with speed of execution - sometimes it takes forever just to open a web connection. I have two RAM modules of 256mB each.  This computer can accommodate up to 2G of RAM.  How much would you suggest I upgrade to?
Many Thanks Ran!  Cheers, Alice

ANSWER:
Hi Alice

You didn't mention anything about your laptop or which OS you're running. Memory is ridiculously cheap now, so I'd err on the side of generosity.

The 512 you have at the moment is barely enough if your files are sometimes large. If you're on XP 1GB should be plenty. Vista is more hungry so I'd go for 1.5 or 2GB.

The Performance tab in the task manager tells you whether you're using up all your RAM or not. Your Peak Commit Charge figure is the most you've used in the current session. Compare it with the Total Physical Memory figure.

Not sure whether your upgrade will affect the speed of opening a connection though, that might be caused by something else!

Sorry for the late reply but I don't work at the weekend. The English summer is seldom reliable but so far we've enjoyed briefly seeing the sun itself once or twice!

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi Ran - don't worry about late replies - I don't expect speediness in the summer -weather is too nice -  too bad you're not in Vancouver summer is awesome this year!
My OS = Windows XP Professional 2002 SP3 Laptop=
DellInpiron8500 - what do you use? I assume you do use a laptop for some of your work... yes, I figured at least 1G so when I get that I will have about 1.25GB of RAM.  I know it won't solve all my speed problems but it should help a bit - will let you know and thanks Ran.

Answer
Hello again

If you buy 1GB and can keep your existing 512MB that sounds about right. X3 and ArcView are both large apps which will appreciate the extra breathing room.

I've had laptops since about '95 and was so excited I couldn't sleep. However now I prefer the comfort of a desktop pc with two screens. Here at work I use a pair of 24" Dell monitors on a Precision 490 with a quad-core 3GHz Xeon (and a slot for a second one when they come down a bit!) with a desktop resolution of 3840 x 1200. I use XP with 4GB RAM. At home I use a pair of 19s on another Precision with a 3GHz core2duo thing running Windows 7 on 4GB. The dual screen thing is so cheap and so easy I'm surprised everyone doesn't do it. My current slaptop is a Latitude C840 which I paid a fortune for about 5 years ago. It has 2GHz Pentium 4M, 1GB RAM and the highlight is a 1600x1200 screen. At the moment the ex-wife is borrowing it to keep in touch with her friends on bookface.

Anyway, I'm happy to help, take care.