|
Member Advice Summary
|
More is better! NOT
by vicwang | Oct 17 '00
Sorry for the obnoxious title, but when it comes to RAM, more is not necessarily better. First the obvious reason: cost. If you're not making full use of your current RAM, the performance benefits of more RAM will be almost zero. I know someone who...Return to opinion
|
|
|
|
|
Comment |
Sorted by
Date Written |
I get so disappointed.... (Reply to this comment)
by Caprig
....when I do not have the time to keep up reading your reviews!
Vic, as usual, your reviews are very informative and I appreciate them very much.
Great job!
Capri
|
Dec 22 '00
7:26 am PST
|
|
Re: Great review! (Reply to this comment)
by vicwang
"Am I going to experience anything detrimental from using two sticks of 128 MB HSDRAM in my 800 MHz Athlon-based system and a 13.8 GB, 7200 RPM Seagate HD?"
Hey wolf_knight, great to hear those tweaks helped your performance. As for your question, I've never heard of compatibility issues with HSDRAM, which is supposed to be 100% compatible with motherboards that support standard SDRAM. The only real difference is that HSDRAM is designed for maximum stability at higher speeds (150 mhz HSDRAM, for example).
The only foreseeable problem would be if you mixed RAM types, for example 64 megs of PC133 SDRAM and 64 megs of PC133 HSDRAM, although IMO the risks of mixing RAM are seriously over-rated. You'll always face the possibility of an unstable system if you use non-identical DIMMS, but in my experience even that is extremely rare.
Of course, unless you plan on running your RAM at 133 mhz or higher, the benefits of HSDRAM will likely be neglible.
-vicwang
|
Nov 13 '00
11:59 pm PST
|
|
Great review! (Reply to this comment)
by Wolf_Knight
Sure enough, tweaking those setting actually speeded up my ancient Compaq's performance a bit. :-) I'll keep your suggestions in mind when the new PC I'm building is complete.
Speaking of which... I have a question for you. Am I going to experience anything detrimental from using two sticks of 128 MB HSDRAM in my 800 MHz Athlon-based system and a 13.8 GB, 7200 RPM Seagate HD? I've been told that there wouldn't be any side effects as they're a matched set, but I just wondered if this was true.
But anyway, I enjoyed reading this well-written and VERY informative review. It definitely gets an "HR."
|
Nov 12 '00
11:30 pm PST
|
|
Wow! (Reply to this comment)
by jgibson2
Someone who not only understands the system, but who can write in language I understand. Thanks for taking the time to post this.
Judy
|
Oct 29 '00
11:07 pm PST
|
|
Re: I think you're right! (Reply to this comment)
by vicwang
"I find that the bigger your HD drive is the faster you run, as well"
Yes, I've found the "more is better" adage to be more accurate regarding hard drives than RAM, since larger hard drives tend to be
1) newer, and 2) have the data packed more densely on the hard disk, which means higher transfer rates.
It's important to remember though, that bigger drives are only slightly faster if all else is equal. Most 40+ GB drives are of the slower 5400 RPM variety, so they'll be slower than a 7200 RPM drive in spite of the larger size. However, if you're looking at a particular model, the larger versions will tend to be slightly faster.
-vicwang
|
Oct 21 '00
2:42 pm PDT
|
|
Re: So... (Reply to this comment)
by vicwang
"got any good ideas to give my iMac a power boost?"
To be honest, the entire Mac side of things is completely alien to me, so can't help much there (maybe someone else reading this is more Mac-proficient?)
However, I did turn up a good Mac tips database over at About.com, located at:
The Ultimate Mac OS Tips Library
http://macos.about.com/compute/macos/library/bltipsubject.htm
|
Oct 21 '00
2:36 pm PDT
|
|
#!%#% good review! (Reply to this comment)
by Hojimoto
Some really practical knowledge there. I was already managing my own swapfile settings, but was unaware of the system.ini line. I'll be adding that here in a few minutes.
Thanks for the tip!
-H-
|
Oct 19 '00
5:16 am PDT
|
|
kick butt! (Reply to this comment)
by psykosis_fc
you rock vic....(insert adoratory look here)
And you taught me something new; I had never seen the conservative variable mentioned anywhere. I *always* wished that you could 'force' Windoze into using physical memory instead of virtual--usually what happens is that everything in the background (as identified by task manager) is paged to disk...ick. I've been running 256Mb at least as long as I've had a P2 since I do alot of Softimage, Maya, 3dSMax and Photoshop-type stuff and the extra RAM helps, but under normal usage, I rarely see mre than 96Mb or so actually being used. I've been minimizing page file use by setting it to 250Mb, and it dramatically increases performance, but the conservative switch helped it even more---thanks dude! Yet another perf tip to add to my arsenal!
kudos--keep 'em coming!
|
Oct 18 '00
7:52 pm PDT
|
|
I think you're right! (Reply to this comment)
by GretaGH
I find that the bigger your HD drive is the faster you run, as well. RAM does require a specific need for it to be effective your you, this is true.
|
Oct 17 '00
4:30 pm PDT
|
|
Fixing the Swapfile (Reply to this comment)
by vicwang
As stated in the article, by default Windows handles your swapfile/virtual-RAM for you, allocating hard drive space as necessary to use for swapfile. So when the swapfile is not in use, it may occupy only a few megs, but as the RAM your system requires fluctuates from one second to the next, the size of the swapfile will also fluctuate going from big to small to big to small, etc. Not only does this put unnecessary strain on your hard disk, but it consumes CPU cycles as well since Windows has to actively manage the swapfile (in addition to whatever other tasks are being performed).
The solution is to "fix" the swapfile to a pre-set amount. The drawback to doing so is that whatever amount you allocate will always be reserved for the swapfile, and can't be used for other purposes. However, if you think about it, you wouldn't want to use that space anyway. It's like if you had a "piggy bank" with a couple hundred dollars in case of an emergency. Having that money available to use any time you want (when you're not facing an emergency) might seem convenient, but it's better to keep it locked up so that when that emergency actually happens, you'll still have it!
To fix the swapfile:
1. Hold the ALT key and double-click on "My Computer" to bring up the System Properties window.
2. Click the "Performance" tab
3. Click "Virtual Memory"
4. By default, "Let Windows manage my virtual memory settings" is enabled. Change this to "Let me manage my own virtual memory settings".
5. Next to "Hard Disk", choose the drive where you would like to place the swapfile, typically the one with the most free space. If you have multiple hard drives, you can choose your secondary hard drive so that you can basically use both drives simultaneously when the swapfile is needed. You also want to place the swapfile on the fastest drive, if possible.
6. Where it says "Minimum", this is where you want to "fix" the swapfile to a certain amount. There is no hard, fast rule when it comes to the amount you should allocate, since RAM needs differ from one person to the next, but I've found a 300 meg swapfile to be quite generous. I've also heard that having a total "Physical RAM + Swapfile" total of 512 megs is a good rule to follow. If you have extremely high memory needs, you may want to increase this even further, although there are several reasons why you don't want too much swapfile, the main one being that it's a waste of hard drive space.
7. Where it says "Maximum", this amount is not as important, but you may want to give it a little headroom in cases of extreme RAM needs. On the other hand, you may want to simply set it to the same value as the Minimum, so that no swapfile resizing occurs. I personally have the Minimum set to 300 and the Maximum set to 500, on a system with 128 megs of physical RAM.
8. Finally, click OK, ignore the scary Windows message that pops up (Microsoft is known for them), and reboot your system. That's it!
-vicwang
|
Oct 17 '00
4:24 pm PDT
|
|
|
|
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.