Page 1 of Some PC memory related questions... can someone help?

Ok, as some of you may remember I`ve recently upgraded my PC. Basically I`ve got...

Abit IC7-Max3 Motherboard
Pentium 4 2.8ghz (800FSB)
512mb PC3200 Dual Channel RAM
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB

Now the thing is I think the performance on it isn`t great. In games its brilliant, and looks amazing, but in Windows XP I think that when multiple applications are open the PC tends to slow up quite alot. To be honest it doesn`t seem any quicker than before when I had my P4 2.0ghz with 1024mb PC133 RAM. I use lots of multimedia applications like Photoshop so need to be able to have multiple applications open you see.

Anyway, got some questions which I really need answering if possible...
[*]If I upgrade my RAM what should I be looking to go to? 1024mb?
[*]Will I get a noticeable improvement by upgrading memory?
[*]If I add another stick of say, 512mb of RAM then will it stop the dual channel mode from working?
[*]How demanding is it of my PC to be running a Wireless LAN?

Thanks for any help, its very much appreciated...

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"The Internet is a communication device that allows people the world over to bitch about movies and share pornography with one another."

Ben

I`m sure that doubling your memory will have an improvement on your windows
performance, mainly because when you`re using multiple applications, information
will be stored & retrieved from memory rather than being cached from the HD.

with regard to the memory affecting the dual channel mode from working, as long
as you put another stick of PC3200 Dual channel in, I can`t see that stopping it
from working?

Are you already on a LAN? if you`re running XP pro (or XP home?) you can check
the performance hit by pressing ctr+alt+del to bring up a dialogue box that will show
cpu performance for Network.

hth matey

Oh, you can alter windows performance by messing about with the visual
style, if you`re running with every effect on e.g. fading task/menu bars etc.
this will certainly have an effect on performance.

I run a lowly AMD 1800+ and have custom settings which improve the performance
of windows.

Ste.

This item was edited on Thursday, 15th January 2004, 08:22

Another problem could be your Hard Drive speed affecting system memory and the speed of making restore points.

The Harddrive on my system went belly up and I`m currently using 2 old drives as a replacement. It takes about 5 times as long to boot up, and seems fairly sluggish if I do anything that requires lots of disk access.


This space for sale





. <--- Except this bit, its mine.

Actually, I was thinking that it could be the hard drive because its not a particularly new one I`ve got Windows installed on. Think I`ll buy myself a new one from Overclockers.co.uk.

Cheers for the help guys.

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"The Internet is a communication device that allows people the world over to bitch about movies and share pornography with one another."

The difference between 7200rpm and 5400 is surprisingly big.
Try and get a bigger buffer too. 8MB.

Ste

With the memory, it might need another pair of 256`s to be installed for it to keep the dual channel. Can`t say for certain though but the motherboard manual should tell you what it needs (long day at work so can`t remember these things today). If you are going for a new hard drive, you might want to try one of the SATA drives. From what I remember your motherboard supports them and the Western Digital ones are said to be good (especially the raptors but they are high priced). Both extra memory and a faster hard drive should give an increase in performance. With a SATA drive you can keep your old drive where it is and use it for downloads/games and stuff while letting the newer faster drive have the Windows installation.