Do You Need a Memory Upgrade?

Hi, I am Jim and I am here to talk to you about upgrading the memory on your computer. There are usually four scenarios under which you need to get a memory upgrade. Number one, upgrading your operating system, number two, when installing new applications on your computer, number three, when adding computer peripherals and number four, when your hard disk starts to chug.

Let us look at these in turn. When upgrading your operating system, your operating system is a huge memory hugger. Windows XP for example requires at least 512 megabytes ram to run smoothly at least on my PC. Always check the operating system manufactures documentation carefully. They do tend to understate memory requirements.

When installing new applications, business software and Microsoft offers video editing applications like a Dolby premier pro and games like Half Life 2, really need a lot of memory. Some will refuse to run if they find your memory lacking. And again, check the manufactures documentation carefully for memory requirements.

When adding computer peripherals, if you add a printer or scanner to your system you should also consider to buying more memory. Printers consume system memory particularly in printing huge files. Scanners consume memory when handling large image files.

When your hard disk starts to chug, in general you can tell whether you should be buying more memory by listening to your hard drive. If it makes a long drawn chugging noise whenever you copy or edit large files you can be sure you need a memory upgrade.

You see, when your system is low on memory it borrow space from your hard disk to make a virtual memory. This process is called paging and it is a very, very slow and irritating. Get that memory upgrade and avoid this problem at all cost. How much memory do you need? Depending on the type a software applications you are using the amount of memory you need will defer. As very minimum computers these days is need at least 256 megabits of ram.

I have explored the various scenarios when a memory upgrade is necessary. I hope you find something from this. It is a lot of information but it is furthered information. Once you determined you need a memory upgrade decide how memory you want, remember that your motherboard has a limited number of slots for memory so check that whatever memory you can buy fits in to those slots. Good luck and happy shopping.