On Tue, 2 Feb 2010 20:09:01 -0800, OZ <OZ@discussions.microsoft.com>
wrote:
> I had 4 500m ram sticks=2gig,, i replaced them with 4 1g sticks,, under sys
> info it says i still only have 2g,,, i have an XP,, i went to DELL and ran
> scan it shows the full 4g,,, any ideas? Windows XP media center Edition,
> Version 2002, service pack 3 It dosent seem to run any better so i believe
> it is not using 2 of them and its not just a sys info error
I'm not sure why you can't see more than 2GB, but let me tell you this
regarding your comment that "it dosent seem to run any better":
It is *not* true that more RAM will always make your computer run
better. It's true only if you don't have enough RAM to run your
applications, so the page file is used instead of RAM.
How much RAM you need for good performance is *not* a
one-size-fits-all situation, and even 2GB is considerably more than
most people need. You get good performance if the amount of RAM you
have keeps you from using the page file significantly, and that
depends on what apps you run. Most people running a typical range of
business applications under XP find that somewhere around 512MB works
well, others need more. Almost anyone will see poor performance with
less than 256MB. Some people, particularly those doing things like
editing large photographic images, can see a performance boost by
adding even more than 512MB--sometimes much more.
If you are currently using the page file significantly, more memory
will decrease or eliminate that usage, and improve your performance.
If you are not using the page file significantly, more memory will do
nothing for you. Go to
http://billsway.com/notes_public/winxp_tweaks/ and download
WinXP-2K_Pagefile.zip and monitor your page file usage. That should
give you a good idea of whether more memory can help, and if so, how
much more.
--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP (Windows Desktop Experience) since 2003
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