Would additional RAM make a Celeron 1,8Ghz w 128MB RAM faster?

[Denvers Dawgs]

My parents have an old Compaq Presario 1.8Ghz and 127MB RAM running with WinXP Home. It is so damn slow, I hate even going over to update/fix/clean it every so often. So would adding 512 or even just another 128mb speed up the PC?

[daamon]

Quite probably - it depends, to a degree, on the what software applications are "so damn slow". Some are processor hungry, others are memory hungry.

The PC I left in the UK with my parents had an AMD 1.8GHz chip with 512 DD Ram and I used it for video editing with Premiere 6.0 with no headaches.

[ozymango]

As luck would have it, we have a couple of similar PCs (not same make, but same processor config) here at work that only had 128mb running XP, and it was painful. Upping to even 256 makes a major difference, and 512 will definitely keep you from pulling your hair out.

[classfour]

For XP, I won't build a machine with less than 256MB RAM, waaaayyy tooooo slooowwww!

I don't see how you can get one to boot in a reasonable amount of time with 128.

But, to answer your question: 256 will impress you, 512 will impress you more, 1 GB will probably surprise you.

[MJA]

256 mb is more than enough for this system don't waste money on it.384 will do the job(net,email.....) .

if the hardrive is old ,and slow a new one will help alot too

check the price of the crucial 256 mb stick .lol

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?N=2010170147+1052107967&Submit=ENE&SubCategory=147

[Denvers Dawgs]

Thanks for the replies.....Going to tell the rents I'm ordering 512 from crucial......

[Nelson37]

With 128 MB on XP, absolutely no question additional ram will improve it. How much is the question, another 256 would probably be about right, 512 maybe overkill but RAM is cheap enough.

For an older PC like that, you might keep an eye out for units being tossed from businesses and pick up the RAM for free.

[kschang]

512 megs definitely. I wouldn't run XP with less than 384.

[MOVIEGEEK]

RAM is cheap these days,when I build a PC I use a minimum of 512MB.If your parents are anything like mine I would also install/run Ad-Aware and adjust IE so it clears the cache when closed and block third party cookies.Also run an anti-virus such as Windows Live online scanner.My parents PC was very slow from all the spyware,bloated cache and useless software loading at bootup.

[Super Warrior]

For a Pc of that age, 256MB would be right. 512MB would be sheer overkill.

If its still slow as hell after upgrading to 256MB, then your problem does NOT lye with RAM.

Is the comp properly maintained/taken care of? Is the HDD all clogged up with viruses, spware, or just has not been defragged in eons? What about the inside of the Pc, is it all caked up with dust?

[Denvers Dawgs]

PC is virus/spyware/adware free. I check it once a month.

[ofbarea]

Actually I upgraded an old PIII 500 Dell Optiplex G1 to Celeorn Tualatin 1.4GHz. It had 256 MB RAM and it was OK, Now with Windows XP with 512MB it is even better and faster as the disk swap is almost gone.

[normcar]

Under Task Manager on the Performance tab, look at Peak memory usage in the lower left part of the Task Manager window. It will tell you how much memory was used at the peak time, and you can also track usage during your most used applications. This is a good guide on how much memory you should purchase. Memory Page Swapping to HDD will slow your system to a crawl.

When purchaseing memory, always do a memory check using memtest or another memory checking software to detect bad memory sticks.

[Vchat20]

I have a similar machine running here. 2ghz Northwood Celeron (128KB L2 Cache) with 512MB pc2700 ddr on a d845grg motherboard (onboard 64MB intel graphics, onboard soundmax audio, and onboard PRO/100 VE Network card). This system currently runs server 2003 enterprise and is my main capture machine utilizing an ancient bt848 card. Although I have to kill quite a number of background apps and services to keep the dropped frames low-to-nill, thats mainly because I have forced myself to go fully uncompressed on the capture side (20MB/s video averaging 34GB per 30 minutes of video).

On the editing side, I have yet to have a problem. It is just a tad bit on the slow side, but it is definitely usable and I have no problems with it. And this is using Premiere Pro 2.0 btw.