increased memory with no effect

choke5150 · September 17th, 2012, 03:18 AM

Hello
I recently upgraded my RAM from 4GB to 8GB. Ive checked my system settings and it shows up as being there. But my computer still seems to have no increase in speed or performance. Is there anything I should be doing to help maximize the memory? I feel like Im overlooking something very obvious. Thanks in advance

Crashdamage · September 17th, 2012, 05:53 AM

It would only be significantly faster if you needed more than 4GB of memory. If you never or hardly ever need more, no difference. Like if you added a turbo to your car but never hit the gas pedal hard enough for the turbo to kick in, the car seems no faster.

mplevy · September 17th, 2012, 08:41 AM

Also, if the OP is running 32-bit Windows it will SEE the extra memory but it can't USE the extra memory.

Angus19 · September 17th, 2012, 10:30 AM

You might want to give more info. What applications are you using that you want to run faster? What kind of processors do you have? Did you try using the system monitor (probably windows task manager if you're on PC) to check your memory usage in conditions when you want more speed?

ApparitionXVII · September 17th, 2012, 11:39 AM

How fast is your hard drive? In a lot of cases, the hard drive is now the bottleneck in system performance...

SUroot · September 17th, 2012, 03:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mplevy

Also, if the OP is running 32-bit Windows it will SEE the extra memory but it can't USE the extra memory.

This would be my suspect.

350X · September 17th, 2012, 07:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mplevy

Also, if the OP is running 32-bit Windows it will SEE the extra memory but it can't USE the extra memory.

you see that on laptops allot but they forget that the video card uses shared memory, 6gb+ 32bit laptop

johnlgalt · September 17th, 2012, 08:54 PM

If you're not using a lot of programs (Especially if your RAM usage was consistently below 50% when you had 4 GB installed) then you're not going to see a speed increase having more RAM.

The only way RAM provides any sort of tangible speed benefit is if your OS is constantly having to page apps from RAM to the HD in the pagefile b/c you keep running out of RAM. That is what causes the typical slowdown, b/c the HD is usually the bottleneck in a system, particularly mechanical hard drive.s In today's age of SSDs, however, that gap is slowly closing.

If your old 4GB based system did not page a lot to the HD, then having more RAM only means you have more free now than before. If you have an SSD where your pagefile is located (normally not, if you set it up the way is recommended) then it's not going to be very advantageous other than for the time required to remove items out of memory and to the SSD and then back again as they get called up for use.

If you do not have an SSD then the paging becomes much more time intensive, and becomes more noticeable.