I'm new as a newborn baby still covered in slime. My setup is in my sig. I upgraded the PSU as my first DIY upgrade and I have a 460GTX card to put in this weekend. Future plans are for an upgrade to my CPU and motherboard, however tonight i got a low memory warning so need some additional memory. Do my future plans for a new CPU and motherboard have any impact on what memory i should be buying? What do i need to get and what shouldn't i get? How much should i spend? Any advice greatly appreciated.
If you're planning to buy a new CPU/Motherboard later, my main advice would be don't overspend on RAM. Your computer uses DDR2, whereas modern systems use DDR3, meaning that you'll have to go out and buy DDR3 RAM when you buy your new motherboard anyway. A kit like this will double your RAM: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/4gb-...(800)-240-pins-non-ecc-unbufferedcas-5-5-5-18
What were you doing when you got this message? Also what sort of things do you use your PC for? (Gaming? Video conversion? surfing? word processing? etc) Do you keep your system clean & maintained? Sorry for all the questions - Just thinking that, depending on your type of use, your system isnt that bad really, and it might be that with a little TLC you can get it running sweetly again
Don't underestimate the Core2's, my Core2Quad is still keeping up with the Core i7's... What I'd suggest you do it grab another cheap 2GB DDR2 kit, that's the same clock speed as your own, and buy a cheap CPU cooler so you can overclock your CPU a bit. This will give it the legs to see you through to next year easily, so you can upgrade CPU, M/B and RAM then when Sandy Bridge has fully hit and the prices have settled.
I think it's not some much your memory thats the problem but guessing from that warning the amount of processes you've got running which is munching all the memory, if you can reduce the amount of processes running then you'll probably find that the problem goes away and your PC ends up running sweet as a nut.
Aha... and that is why simpletons like me join forums like this. I was Playing civ iv while downloading hawx2 and then started removing unused programs from my c drive. I guess that may have been the problem. Civ runs slowly on my machine currently cos I'm near the end of a game with graphics etc on max, all the AI running and a massive landscape. I gues there's some number crunching going on there. So it stalls from time to time even when that's the only thing open. In terms of maintenance.... erm!... I did have the case open a couple of weeks back and blew the dust. In terms of use, it's for me to be a child again primarily (so playing games) but the kids use it for homework now and then
You can take a lot of programs out of the start up by typing > msconfig> startup and the uncheck everything you don't need starting up. I only have all the essential windows programs and anti virus booting. Anything else I open it as it's needed. Doing this will lower the processes running and also lower boot time because you won't have everything trying to load at the start up.
When i get a chance mate, il post up a few top tips for cleaning up the PC. Got the old man round at the mo so cant so it...... But il be back Unless someone beats me to it lol.
Ok, thanks for all the tips. I feel a total fool now cos while messing around today I got the message up again and it's my hard drive (C Drive) that is almost full, not memory at all. I'd still really appreciate any cleaning tips. I do have a NAS drive that I keep all my Apple TV and iTunes media on. Can I utilise this more to clear space on my C drive?
I'd move stuff like films, maybe music/photos to the NAS (if there are any on the PC); though with the price of a 1TB drive below £40 getting another hard drive might be a better option. What's the capacity of your current HDD?
Right.... 1) Remove all the programs you do not need using control panel 'Add/remove programs'. Be brave & ruthless. Get rid of that program you only used the once.... You dont need it anymore!!! 2) delete all the music/pictures/files that you do not want, or back them up onto a DVD / NAS drive as suggested above. Again...Be Ruthless, do you really really need all that data sitting around? Back it up and get rid of it! 3) Run a 'Disk Cleanup' and remove everything (check all the boxes). (Right click you C:\ drive from My Computer, and select 'properties', then select 'Disk Cleanup'. WARNING, THIS WILL DELETE EVERYTHING IN YOUR RECYCLE BIN 4) Delete all your temporary internet files (select 'Tools' in the top right hand corner of Internet Explorer) - Check all the boxes except for the 'Preserve Favourites website data' one. 5) Defragment your hard drive (Right click you C:\ drive from My Computer, select 'Properties' and select the 'Tools' tab then select 'Defragment'. This step may take a while depending on the size of your hard drive, and the state of defragmentation. This is a very important step and is well worth taking the time. 6) Select start>Run> and then type 'msconfig' - Select the 'Start up' tab and uncheck all the programs that you do not want to run when you boot the machine. The less ticks you have, the faster your boot up will be. DO NOT CHANGE ANYTHING ELSE ON THIS MENU, ONLY THE START UP TAB SHOULD BE CHANGED. 7) Download the latest version of your video card drivers (go to the manufacturer website such as Nvidia or ATI etc) This might help improve your gaming experiance. This is another important step for the gaming side of things. Just think, it might help run Civ better! 8) Update your Anti-Virus & run a full scan to check for viruses. I can recommend Microsoft Security Essentials....Its free, runs in the background and not resource hungrey. Very impressed. If you do decide to switch, dont forget to uninstall all other Anti Virus stuff from 'Add/Remove programs' in the Control Panel. 9) Download 'Malware Bytes' from download.com and run a full scan to look for and remove any malware. This is a little detox plan and will enable you to give your PC the TLC it deserves With regard to hardware.....Yes, a 2x2gb DDR2 PC6400 Corsair kit would provide a little extra umph..... But you should be able to achieve better performance by just cleaning up your system a little. Hope you find this helpful - bobby
Cheers chaps. I've already got all my videos, pics and music on the NAS drive, I also have a 1TB had drive that uses USB which I dug out last night and plugged in. Can I move program files to that? It's a 1TB Western Digital Elements if that's important to know. Down to step 5 without any mishaps. Defragmenting drive now!
No, not a good idea. It's often possible to run programs of an external drive, but you'd probably need to reinstall most of them and it would be very slow too. The operating system and program files are the only things that really should be on an internal drive, if you haven't got space for those then you should get a new one.
D'oh! In any case, I'd still suggest a RAM upgrade. 4GB will give your system plenty of breathing room.
