Dr Kenneth Noisewater 0 Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 Been to my parents today and they asked me to take a look at there computer as it has been running slow for a couple of months. It's two or three years old and running on XP. I checked the properties and it says it only has 192mb of RAM. Now I'm sure it had more than that when it was new (512 sounds about right) and it has run fine until recently. So is it possible that some of the RAM 'chips' (if that is the right word) have developed a fault and stopped working leading to the reduction in speed? The hard drive also seems to be churning over a lot of the time even with no processes running. I can't think of anything else, and I gave the machine a quick spring clean with Ccleaner, Ncleaner, Tweak Now and a drive defragmenter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimbo 175 Posted March 25, 2008 Share Posted March 25, 2008 Have you had a look inside the machine ? Look to see how many sticks of RAM there are and see if they have the size printed on them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sammynb 3355 Posted March 25, 2008 Share Posted March 25, 2008 Check the local kebah shop, just in case Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr Kenneth Noisewater 0 Posted March 25, 2008 Author Share Posted March 25, 2008 Have you had a look inside the machine ? Look to see how many sticks of RAM there are and see if they have the size printed on them. No, I was a bit wary about opening the case, didn't want to fuck it up any further. Is there a diagnostics program I could run instead? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sammynb 3355 Posted March 25, 2008 Share Posted March 25, 2008 Have you had a look inside the machine ? Look to see how many sticks of RAM there are and see if they have the size printed on them. No, I was a bit wary about opening the case, didn't want to fuck it up any further. Is there a diagnostics program I could run instead? Dr, yes and no. Obviously your original ram total was taken from your my computer properties, yes? If you go to my computer, right click and go to manage, then to system information, then system summary you should be able to get a better idea of what is in the side the computer. I'd also suggest googling the make and model of the computer and check what its' standard specification was just in case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fop 1 Posted March 25, 2008 Share Posted March 25, 2008 192mb of RAM is a slightly strange amount to be displaying (does it have an onboard graphics and/or soundcard?), especially if you think it had 512 to start with, although if the hard drive is suddenly churning a lot it sounds like its casheing all the time now suggesting it may well have, especially as 192 isn't much to try to run XP on, even if you strip the OS right down. I'd just start by taking the case off and seeing if any of the RAM modules have popped loose, or if there was a vast amount of dust in there that could be causing a problem. Although if it's connected to the internet (especially with IE - then download firefox/opera for them) its probably worth running some anti-spyware/virus programs (Adaware, SB-search and destroy, Trend house call etc) as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Park Life 71 Posted March 25, 2008 Share Posted March 25, 2008 XP won't run on 192mb of ram surely? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fop 1 Posted March 25, 2008 Share Posted March 25, 2008 XP won't run on 192mb of ram surely? Yeah in theory you can get it to run on fairly small amounts (I think the "record" is a Pentium running at 8MHz with 20mb of ram ), although really it depends on what you call "run" as it'll likely be as slow as hell and likely disk casheing constantly (which sounds like what is happening here). If you use something like nlite to strip out all the unneeded bloat it helps a lot as well..... actually that just helps in general with XP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lazarus 0 Posted March 25, 2008 Share Posted March 25, 2008 XP won't run on 192mb of ram surely? Yeah in theory you can get it to run on fairly small amounts (I think the "record" is a Pentium running at 8MHz with 20mb of ram ), although really it depends on what you call "run" as it'll likely be as slow as hell and likely disk casheing constantly (which sounds like what is happening here). If you use something like nlite to strip out all the unneeded bloat it helps a lot as well..... actually that just helps in general with XP. Ive ran a version micro version of xp that booted using less than 30mb ram but as said above thats cos a lot of the uneeded stuff is stripped out and it was fast as fuck tbh. If anyone wants to try one of the stripped out xp's then see here - http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3844716/Window...D_by_eXPerience. i am using fthe tiny xp version at the mo. Experience33 also does a stripped out vista, a few stripped out versions of office and several 'lite' versions of popular programs. see here for all his other stuff http://thepiratebay.org/user/eXPerience33/ ive tried a lot of his releases and their brilliant. esecially good for gamers where every clock cycle and mb of ram is crucial. but i digress - 192 mb of ram sounds fair enough. if theres only a 250mb stick installed or xp is only seeing 250mb then it means the onboard graphics are taking up the difference. nowt wrong there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr Kenneth Noisewater 0 Posted March 25, 2008 Author Share Posted March 25, 2008 Obviously your original ram total was taken from your my computer properties, yes?If you go to my computer, right click and go to manage, then to system information, then system summary you should be able to get a better idea of what is in the side the computer. Yes, I got that figure from My Computer>Properties. I can follow you as far as manage but I can't see system information / summary? 192mb of RAM is a slightly strange amount to be displaying (does it have an onboard graphics and/or soundcard?), especially if you think it had 512 to start with, although if the hard drive is suddenly churning a lot it sounds like its casheing all the time now suggesting it may well have, especially as 192 isn't much to try to run XP on, even if you strip the OS right down. I think it has independent rather onboard graphics/sound cards. I think you're right about caching being the reason the hard drive is doing overtime. I think I'm going to have to take the case off it and have a proper look. Sooo..... what does RAM look like then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr Kenneth Noisewater 0 Posted March 25, 2008 Author Share Posted March 25, 2008 but i digress - 192 mb of ram sounds fair enough. if theres only a 250mb stick installed or xp is only seeing 250mb then it means the onboard graphics are taking up the difference. nowt wrong there. Isn't 512 the recommended minimum? It runs but its mega slow if you do more than one thing at once. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lazarus 0 Posted March 25, 2008 Share Posted March 25, 2008 but i digress - 192 mb of ram sounds fair enough. if theres only a 250mb stick installed or xp is only seeing 250mb then it means the onboard graphics are taking up the difference. nowt wrong there. Isn't 512 the recommended minimum? It runs but its mega slow if you do more than one thing at once. a quick google says that microsoft recommended 128mb ram and an absolute bare minimum of 64mb to run xp. but in the real world 512mb would have been ideal. can you get into the bios or check the pc's post? it will state how much ram is installed in either. if thats a bit too much for you download and run the belarc advisor from here http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html this will give a complete inventory of the pc's hardware and software. i get this 3320 Megabytes Installed Memory Slot 'DIMM0' has 1024 MB (serial number SerNum0) Slot 'DIMM1' has 1024 MB Slot 'DIMM2' has 1024 MB Slot 'DIMM3' has 1024 MB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr Kenneth Noisewater 0 Posted March 27, 2008 Author Share Posted March 27, 2008 Cheers, Laz I'll try Belarc next time I'm there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ULSTER MAG 0 Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 Maybe a bit late but you could check out Crucial.com It will scan your pc and tell you how much RAM you have, any spare slots and which type of RAM you need to add. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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