Joet2007

My internet is slow to respond on my primary computer - other computers on my network are much quicker...I have an older Gateway E-4600, 1.50 gigahertz Intel Pentium 4, 8 kilobyte primary memory cache, 420.07 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity with 768 Megabytes Installed Memory (4 slots used-2x128 & 2x256). I primarily use the computer to store music, email and surf internet - no gaming.
Question, should I upgrade to additional RAM (512 or 1G) replacing the 128 boards or will this not improve performance enough to justify the additional cost ??? Do you recommend doing some other upgrades ?

speedster123

the extra ram size wouldnt hurt, make sure you use the crucial link to get the proper speed and size.
IMPORTANT! Before You Buy Memory

how is this computer linked to the router?
have you defraggged? run disk check?
have you gone into internet options and deleted temp files, cookies ect.?

Joet2007

Thanks for reply...yes, i did run these and have seen improvement by Optimizing system using Uniblue. I did run a check on memory like you asked as well - just was not sure if this older system would see an improvement with additional RAM if the other stuff is not quick either! If i add 1G of RAM, almost double what I have now should I see good results you think ?

speedster123

better results for sure. you did a hard disk check? your device manager is clean without any yellow alerts? adware and malware free?

bhahar84

Hi Joet2007!!

I consider your system have a nice specifications there, but maybe some addition to the RAM size would be better in term of perfomance. You may see the difference if you add at least 1GB of RAM. Make sure you select the most suitable frequency of the RAM

And, in addition to the RAM, you may also consider about the processor speed. Not to say your processor is slow, it is on average speed. Maybe you can increase your computer perfomance if you can add a higher clock frequency processor, such as 2.66GHz Pentium-4

And, for the simple solutions right now without any hardware upgrades, you can use Firefox (with some internal adjustment) instead of Internet Explorer, as you are more into browsing internet and emailing compare to gaming








Hope this explanation helps

justpassingby

Actually you can determine whether more memory will increase the performances of your computer before you buy any : press ctrl + alt + del to access the task manager and go to the performance tab. Look at the figures at the bottom after a full day of use : if the peak value under commit charge is higher than the total under physical memory then adding more RAM will help.

How much virtual memory do you have ? Right-click my computer => properties => advanced => settings under performances => advanced => change. Tell us about your settings there.

With a s423 motherboard the biggest CPU he can install is a 2Ghz Willamette (double-check the socket type as that CPU exists in both s478 and s423 versions).

The price of brand new RDRAM memory is staggering :
http://www.nextag.com/All--a-memory+...amzB2z5---html
You could buy a whole computer much better than yours for the same price on e-bay. There comes a time when upgrading becomes pointless. You could probably find second hand 512MB sticks for less than 100$ but I wouldn't buy used memory.

If you still wish to upgrade your memory, make sure you read the page 29 of your manual (page 37 in the pdf). Your motherboard supports a maximum of 2GB (4x512MB) of PC600 or PC800 RDRAM. PC800 is faster but you'll have to determine whether your currently installed memory is PC600 or PC800. If it's PC600 you won't be able to keep it as it won't be compatible with the PC800.

Joet2007

if the peak value under commit charge is higher than the total under physical memory then adding more RAM will help.

How much virtual memory do you have ? Right-click my computer => properties => advanced => settings under performances => advanced => change. Tell us about your settings there.

Thanks for suggestions, I ran all the system cleaning etc & Defrag last nite - some changes. Info requested: Commit Charge Peak 2,167,616, Physical Memory Total 785,712. I have check on System Managed Size and Total Paging File size for all drivers Min Allowed 2 MB, Reco 1150 MB, Currently Allocated 1150 MB! Does this help? Will installing a new processor improve over increased RAM mod (I do have PC800-45 Non ECC mod's installed - was thinking of getting 2x512 used for approx $120) !

justpassingby

For office applications (surfing, office, ...) the amount of memory is more important than the speed of the CPU.

Please make sure that the 2,167,616 value is the peak value under commit charge and not the limit value. If it's indeed the peak charge then it's huge ! What's weird is that it's bigger than the total of your physical and virtual memory, which normally shouldn't be possible. When the peak reaches the limit it means that the system uses all the available memory on the computer. It will begin swapping on the hard drive and the applications will become sluggish. Afaik the peak should never go above the limit.

Could you post a screenshot of the performances tab ? To take a screenshot press the printscreen (or prt scr) key, go to start => all programs => accessories => paint, click edit => paste, save the image as .jpg and attach it to your next post using the manage attachment button.

I'd also like a screenshot of your processes tab. Expand the window so that we can see all your processes. If needed scroll down and take another screenshot.

Joet2007

I dont have "Paint" to paste the screen shots ! The data i gave you was after running it for a while...the Commit Charge Peak currently says 1,008,532 and Physical memory Total is 787,712. I did disable a few background apps that seemed to help but i am interested in thoughts on either memory or processor is best bang for $ in this system! Thanks,

justpassingby

You can paste the screenshot in any image editor program or even in Word if you don't have paint. The problem is that the commit charge peak shouldn't possibly get higher than the total of the physical and virtual memory. And no matter how I look at that 2,167,616KB is bigger than 787,712KB + 1,177,600KB.

Increasing the size of the page file will help in your case : go back to the virtual memory settings (my computer => properties => advanced => settings under performances => advanced => change) and set the paging file to a custom 2048-2048 size (set the same value in both boxes). Would be a good idea to run perfectdisk to defrag the page file afterwards (install, do an offline smartplacement defrag, uninstall).

About your bang for bucks question, if the total under commit charge (not the peak, nor the limit) sometimes gets higher than the total under physical memory then more RAM will increase the performances. Go for the memory. There won't be that many differences between a 1.5Ghz and a 2.0Ghz Willamette CPU.

But you can probably find a complete desktop tower with a s478 or s775 motherboard, a 2.5Ghz+ CPU and 1GB of DDR for less than 150$ so I'm not sure the upgrade is the cheapest solution.

Joet2007

Thanks for keeping this going for me...here are screen shots (Word) of Performance based on very little use this morning...I did make the change to 2048 but did not see any noticable difference. Thanks,

Attached Files

1 Time.doc (210.5 KB, 4 views)

justpassingby

By setting the page file to a fixed size you will prevent it to fragment and also reduce the overall fragmentation on the system drive. But you need to run perfect disk once on your system drive since your pagefile is probably still fragmented now and XP's defrag utility can't defrag it.

Nothing wrong in your processes, but one or two things you can adjust :

speedupmypc.exe : I would stay away from such programs. There's no way to know exactly what changes they do to your system and this one also has some anti-spyware/popup blocker features that could conflict with your McAfee security suite. I would completely uninstall SpeedUp My PC.

viewmgr.exe = viewpoint updater. There's no need to look for updates all the time in the background since the program will probably prompt you to update anyway when it'll run. You can disable that feature in control panel => Viewpoint Manager Control Panel => disable auto-updating.

point32.exe = intellimouse system tray icon, provides quick access to some mouse settings. If you don't use it you can uncheck it in msconfig (start => run => msconfig) => startup

Googletoolbarnotifier and Googleupdaterservice = Google Toolbar, uninstall it if you don't use it.

There are 13 different processes related to the McAfee security suite, which probably means that another security suite could use less ressources but if you never had any problems with it I see no reason to change.

There are also 4 processes related to DigitalPersona, a fingerprint reader maybe ? If you don't use it you could uninstall it but make sure you have the installer somewhere in case you'd want to reinstall it one day.