RAM is all you need
May 31st 2005
Proof that more memory can revitalize a dying system: My three-year-old laptop was slow as hell running XP and anything else. I maxed out the RAM up to a gigabyte yesterday, and now it feels faster than my desktop. It’s not actually; my laptop’s processor is half the clock speed, but as long as I’m not encoding video or playing half life 2, it’s more responsive.
That is all. RAM is good.
My grandpa went to BestBuy with his wife’s laptop, and they installed 256m on it for $100. I think that was pretty steep, but I guess if you include labor…I told him I could have installed it free. Oh well. He says the performance boost is incredible. I think they had 64m before…
I know, indeed I’d like to get a 1GB stick for my Powerbook. Unfortunately in Italy RAM is so expensive!
$100 isn’t bad for laptop ram with installation I guess. I got the gigabyte for $220 from Crucial; fortunately, work paid for it—I’m running this gigantic dev environment—a Oracle 9i driven Java+Jakarta+Tomcat+Apache+JSP app that takes up a ridiculous amount of memory.
Right now I only have 85 MB free! It’s crazy.
I want RAM. But then, I’m not a graphics/web design nut the way you are… so I guess I can wait.
I got my 12” powerbook with 256MB…then bought another 512MB (not from apple, that would have cost a fortune) for around $120. Since the 256 megs were practically used up anytime I started a program, the upgrade to 768MB saw a major speed increase. My old 800mhz P3, 512MB Dell laptop runs slower than molasses in January. I think it may have to do with the full hard drive.
Running XP on 64 MB is insane. Running it on 256 is borderline; 512 is probably fine for most people; 1024+ if your a power user.