Re: adding memory question

"WSZsr" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[Moved to bottom to maintain continuity]

"MZB" <moo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I have a Dell Inspiron 2200. It is sluggish. I've done things like
defragging, running anti-spyware programs, clearing the cache, eliminating
some startup items, etc. They do help.

My question:

I have 512K memory. would making it 1 gig improve the time to start-up and
shut down? Would it also increase speed in net surfing (I have Charter
broadband)?

I don't think adding more RAM would make an appreciable difference.

I have experience with XP on three similar machines at three
levels of RAM.

My original Dell Dim 4400 came with 256MB to which I added a
512MB chip as part of the order, making 768MB total

The second-hand Dell Dim 2400 I used at a new job had 256 MB.
Sluggish as hell. Pricing at the time was such that a 1MB chip
made sense. Huge speedup.

Currently at home using a stock Dell Dim 4600C with 512MB

Usage is plain vanilla, no gaming and I'm not doing anything
heavily graphic intensive (youtube etc clips are as graphically
intense as I get ;->).

Subjectively, for me, 768 was a sweet spot, slightly speedier
than 512, but not such that I'm contemplating a memory upgrade.

The 1MB addition to that 2400 didn't show me anything faster than
I was seeing at home on the 4400 with 768MB total.

Start-up/Shutdown speeds are a function of all the things we have
going on in our computers nowadays. We'll never get back to the
5 second MS/DOS startup/shutdown on an 80286 AT machine. ;->

With broadband connections you have to keep in mind that there
are two computers involved; yours and the web server on the other
end. Your Charter connection may be working at the speed of heat
(my Comcast is 10gb/s just up from 8gb/s with a cable TV package
upgrade), but the server you're downloading from may throttle its
speed to you. At 8gb/s, I routinely saw up to 990 KB/sec
download speeds from some servers, from others I got 400-500
KB/sec. This was a constant over time between often used
websites, so the systems analyst in me says that the slowdown is
on their end, not mine.

Which is a long way of saying the same thing WSZsr said above.
You at most would see a minor speed-up on the margins (your My
Computer screen will spring up a few milliseconds faster, etc) at
768MB vice 512MB. But your web browsing is going to as fast as
the target sites are set up for. Whatever your XP computer has as
long as it is above 256MB [Even Dell knew XP's specified min of
128MB was a joke, and this newsgroup told me I'd need at least
512MB before I decided to upgrade from Win 98SE. Thanks, guys.]

--
OJ III
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: optimization
    ... memory to speed up the InsertItemcalls. ... the value to the CArray, ... showing all the primes and their index or sequence number. ... measured at such low speeds is basically the time to copy data into the ...
    (microsoft.public.vc.mfc)
  • OT: when is parallel not parallel?
    ... well, something akin to the Memory Channel, as I think it was called, so ... data would transfer at near memory-bus speeds. ... parallel bit channels running over a single FC cable. ... parallel interface have settled to their final values. ...
    (comp.os.vms)
  • Re: OT: when is parallel not parallel?
    ... well, something akin to the Memory Channel, as I think it was called, so ... data would transfer at near memory-bus speeds. ... parallel interface have settled to their final values. ... If I knew enough about SIMH I'd even speculate on ...
    (comp.os.vms)
  • Re: Upgrade the motherboard?
    ... memory is important -- and newer types of memory are much faster than the ... (your board only supports IDE operation at UDMA33 speeds, ... so your existing PSU may not be happy driving modern kit -- ... Modern boards will have enough USB ports without this. ...
    (uk.comp.homebuilt)
  • Re: is 333Mhz-400Mhz a LOT of overclocking?
    ... gotten to the point of confusion with Fsb, memory and cpu speeds. ...
    (alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt)