Everything you Need to Know About Slowdowns Caused by RAM

Have you ever heard to expression "download some more RAM"? Many tech savvy would tell you that this is a joke and could potentially harm your computer should you follow that statement.

RAM, is short form for "Random Access Memory". In short, RAM is how much usable memory that your computer has at its disposal. There are two parts in choosing memory kits. One of course is the capacity of the module. The other is the speed the module runs at. In short, the speed of the module would not matter to the average end user. The reason being is that the difference in performance wouldn't be noticeable in daily applications like editing documents and browsing the internet. However, capacity size is where things really start to matter. It's no big deal when you have a surplus of memory for the daily tasks you do. However, once you start running out of memory, what ends up happening is that your computer will now use allocated space in the Hard Drive as memory. And since the speeds of which hard drives run at in terms or reads and writes is no where near the blazing speeds of a memory module, you can anticipate dramatic system slow downs once you hit and go over that barrier.

So you way be wondering how you can see if you have enough RAM or not. A simple way to find out is by going into your Task Manager (CTR + ALT + DELETE). Under "Performance" you can see a graph of how much free memory you have left at your disposal.

If you find that your system is running slowly and you are running short on memory, there are a few tricks you can do to free up some of that memory. One of which is see how many tabs you have open in your Internet browser. Internet browsers are one of the biggest memory hogs in a system and the more tabs you have open, the more memory it's going to take up since all that information has to be stored for quick access.

If you can't change your internet habits, then looking into a RAM upgrade could be a solution for your computer slow down problems. That being said, make sure that your system has support for higher memory capacities. Most modern computers (even about 3 or so years old) don't have a problem with higher RAM capacity support. However, many older systems do have a limit of how much RAM they can handle or account for. And make sure you are getting the right kind of modules for your specific system. Most modern systems nowadays use memory called DDR3 SDRAM. DDR stands for Double Data Rate and SDRAM stands for Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory. Older systems could be running on DDR2 SDRAM or DDR1 SDRAM, older standards of DDR SDRAM. So make sure you find the right kit for your system. (DDR1 and DDR2 are already phased out standards, meaning finding these parts could be both pricey and hard to come by. In this case, a completely new system with a more modern platform could be the better route to follow.)

If you are still facing slow downs, then the problem might be elsewhere. These could include viruses or ad-ware infections, software problems or just plain old aging hardware. If that's the case, you may want to consider re-installing your OS or an entire platform upgrade.