How Can I Increase The Memory (ram) On My Computer Without Opening Up The Hardware?
Submitted by admin on September 24, 2009 – 1:59 am16 Comments
Is there a way using my operating system (Windows XP) or some type of free shareware program to optimize my memory. I keep getting error messages that my memory is low and I need to shut down programs. I’ve defragged the hard drive, cleaned registry, closed programs, etc. but nothing seems to work. I don’t want to spend a lot on a 5 year old Compaq Presario desktop computer by adding memory. Any suggestions?
RAM is physical. There is no way to increase it without opening the computer and doing a physical upgrade. Memory managers try to keep garbage collected, deallocating memory that isn’t being used, or maybe swapping data that is currently in RAM to a swap file (”virtual memory”) on the hard drive, but these tricks can only do so much. Plus, the actions in trying to keep RAM usage down will increase the CPU utilization, so the tradeoff may not be worth it.
You may be able to find some services that your computer doesn’t need and turn them off, but your best bet is to do a physical upgrade. The good news is that if your computer is old, probably the RAM it takes is inexpensive.
You can increase Virtual memory – but you may want to consider upgrading to a new computer or increasing your RAM.
Virtual memory is simulated RAM. When you have use up all your RAM, your computer will shift data to an empty space on the hard drive. Computer swaps data to the hard disk and back to your RAM as needed. When you increase your virtual memory you are increasing the empty space that is reserved for your RAM overflow.
You can easily increase virtual memory by following the steps below.
1.Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
2.Click Performance and Maintenance, and then click System.
3.On the Advanced tab, under Performance, click Settings.
4.On the Advanced tab, under Virtual memory, click Change.
5.Under Drive [Volume Label], click the drive that contains the paging file that you want to change.
6.Under Paging file size for selected drive, click to Custom size check box. You can enter the amount of memory you would like to reserve for Virtual memory by entering the initial and maximum size.
7.Click Set
When you are prompted to restart the computer, click Yes.
Special Note: You should choose the same amount for the initial size and maximum size. This will Stop your CPU from constantly changing the paging file.
You could check the size of your pagefile and if necessary increase it if it isn’t optimized. By optimized i mean it should be one and a half times the amount of actual memory so if you have 512mb of physical memory your page file can be up to 768mb. 1024 mb it can be 1536mb etc.
To do this click start, right click my computer, then on properties, click on the advanced tab and then in the performance section click settings.
In this section again click the advanced tab in the section at the bottom on Virtual Memory area click change. Highlight your drive at the top and choose the custom setting if not already set. then set the initial size to the amount of actual RAM you have and the maximum to one and a half times this.
RAM is hardware. Physical parts. You can’t download it until we prefect teleportation.
The only way to upgrade your RAM without opening your case would be to have somebody else do it for you. Or cut a hole in your case. Then you’re not really removing the case.
RAM is cheap, but with a computer that old I don’t know if adding a bit of RAM will help it much. Prebuilt computers come with terrible motherboards most of the time. The motherboard limits what parts you can use and how much memory (RAM) your computer can handle.
What I did I go to college and do a lot of papers plus I love my computer games, but my laptop does not have a lot of memory so i went to walmart and got flash drivers a 2 GB one will run about $12.88 and an 8 GB is about $24.88 depending on where you are but I saved my games to on and school work to another that way it was not all stored on the computer and freed up a lot of space. So when I want to play a game I just plug the flash driver into the USB port and pick the one I want to open and then do so. It saves from having to burn it on disks and download it and then open it plus it take up a lot less space. I hope this helps Chelle
there is no way that u can increase your ram with out opening your cabinet.The softwares you use only takes up additional resources of your computer.there is no replacement for hardware ram,u can only increase performance a bit by increasing virtual ram.
so i suggest you to buy a new ram,its cheap now a days.
Use this to free up the ram: http://www.download.com/Free-Ram-Optimiz…
and with this, scan, click repair, and then click on the starup programs button, adn stop everything except antivirus software, what is for optimzation:http://www.download.com/Advanced-Windows…
Same here………wait a minute, is this me asking the same question??
lol
Seriously, what I did, was burn pictures, music, and other important documents on to discs. Then I did a disc clean up and then defrag.
Now I have more room and my Compaq runs faster.
I think mine is about 7yrs old though. But, I have the same thing as you.
ramm for that pc shouldn’t be that expensive you can go to http://www.crucial.com it will can your system tell you what kind you need and even give you a price
Well you could try a program such as Readyboost (Windows Vista) that allows usb memory sticks to act like Ram but I think that only works for Vista.
RAM is a hardware issue and cannot be solved with software unfortunately. It’s about time to consider buying a new PC, I think
you can get a RAM optimizer but its gonna cost you and it probably wouldn’t help. i think you should look into a new pc.
RAM is hardware
Virtual RAM is software, look to advanced settings in your control panel system dialog
You may have to go to Best Buy and purchase more mem or get rid of some of your applications.
you really can not do this.
no way!