RIVER BENDER - August, 2008

Have you noticed when you get a new e-mail address how your spam disappears? The longer you keep the same old address spammers somehow manage to find it and spam increases. The same thing happens with your PC's RAM memory. The older your PC becomes the more software is added and your memory becomes taxed. Your hard drive, used as extra virtual memory, becomes over-worked and slows down so your once perky PC becomes sluggish. What can you do?

For starters you can clean out as much useless stuff as you can. We've spoken about using Start/Run - type cleanmgr or using free CCleaner to clean out junk. We've also mentioned deleting all update uninstall folders at C:\Windows that start and end with $, except one folder Microsoft says to retain, which is $hf_miq$. You can eliminate all JAVA update files (many megabytes) in Add/Remove Programs except the latest update, which at this writing is Java(tm) 6 update 6. Surely you've pruned your start menu down to the bone at Start/Run - type msconfig. The only start menu items you need are programs such as your anti-virus program, firewall, Windows Defender, etc. If you're not sure about deleting an item put the name in Google and find out what it does. You can always add it back. Your PC will actually run with all items deleted. Finally, look over all programs and their size at Add/Remove programs in the Control Panel and see what you don't need. Do you really use Google's Tool Bar or Google Earth which is huge?

OK you've done all the above and perhaps more but your poor old PC is still struggling. There's nothing left but to increase RAM memory. If that scares you, let me say that anybody can add memory to their desktop PC or even their Laptop. It's simple, provided you do your homework and determine what kind of memory to buy. Memory prices are dropping. How much memory do you have now? Right-click on My Computer and select Properties and you'll see how much you have and how fast your PC is in megaHertz. Hey, if your PC runs at way less than 1 mHz extra memory will go just so far in speeding it up.

The first thing you need to know is the manufacturer and model of your PC. Look in the manual or on the case. If you can't find it then open up your PC and look for the RAM card(s) already installed and remove one to identify it. It will show the amount of RAM in megabytes and the type card such as PC2100 DDR which is a 184-pin card. Most PCs have 2 slots for RAM. For example, a Dell Dimension 2350 has slots for two PC2100 DDR cards, each of which can be up to 515MB for a total of one gigabyte of memory. The original PC may have come with only one card of 128mB of RAM or perhaps both cards filled with 128mB.

There are lots of instructions on Google on how to determine RAM and how to install it so there's no need for instructions here. Simply type "install RAM" in Google and numerous sites show up. Some have installation videos such as YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiFIgSQOY7g which everybody should watch and practically every company selling memory provides help in identifying what you need. Www.crucial.com/ will even scan your PC and tell you what RAM you have and what you need to maximize it. Staples has a RAM configurator for the various brands of RAM they carry at http://www.staples.com/sbd/cre/resources/memory/index.html. Wal-Mart now carries the popular Kingston memory and you can see the Kingston memory configurator at http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/config/mfrmod.asp. We've come a long way in making it easy for everybody to increase RAM memory in their PC.

All past computer articles since 1998 are at http://pages.suddenlink.net/davew/dwindex.htm.