Does my new HP need more ram?

esbo

CLLC wrote: »

Hi MSE'S,

I just got a new HP compaq 6720 and the task manager says i am using..

740MB of PHYSICAL MEMORY

and 32% of CPU usage.

This is a brand new laptop with 1 GIG or RAM

so do i need more ram or should i complain to HP?

THANKS:beer:

Well no your don't need more RAM as you are only using 740 MB of RAM out
of 1000 MB (1 GB), so you have 260 MB unused, effectively that 260 MB
being wasted. If you open more programs you may well find the ammount of
RAM being used goes up a bit .I am currently using about 800 MB of RAM,
although I have 1250 available. It rarely goes much above this value in fact it
has dropped back to 700MB in use. 90% of the time is is between 700MB
and 800MB, 99% of the time it is less than 900MB.
So you don't really need anymore RAM unless you are an avid computer game
player and those expensive high definition fact graphics games tend to use a lot of RAM. They type of games you can play for free do not use much RAM at all.

If you bought more RAM at the moment you would be basically wasting your money as it would virtually never be used. Even if you opened a lot of programs
at once which used more than 1GB in total your computer would still cope because
is would use part of your hard drive as if it were RAM. That might slow your computer down, but only if your were using all those programs at the same time.
It is highly unlikely you would get all those programs running at the same time
anyway, most of them would not be doing anything, so the memory they occupy can happilly be swapped out to your harddrive without slowing your machine at all.

Pretty much the same goes for your CPU, you have 68% free lying idle so you have plenty of spare capacity there. If you look in the taskmanager and click the
process tab you can see which processes are using the CPU at any moment in time.
I expect it is your browser which is using the CPU most, either Internet Explorer
or Firefox if you use that alternative browser.

So no need to complain to HP your computer sounds just fine to me, it is running
very happily. Maybe you are confusing your RAM with your hard disk drive?
If you click on 'my computer' it will show you how much free space you have on
you drive, as it is brand new I expect around 66% or more will be free.

So yes you have 1GB of RAM but it does not need to use all of it at the moment.
Most of the memory is used my the operating system Window, thats a big program
so it uses a lot, most of the other programs you use will only use a small amount
of memory, so for you to use that spare 260 MB you would need to be running dozens of different applictions and most people simply are not capable of doing that
many things at once so you don't have anything to worry about, your computer is fine.
You can try openng a lot of different programs and see how effects the RAM usage, but you will probably run out of things to open before the computer runs out
of physical ram RAM. Even if it does run out of physical RAM it will uses 'virtual RAM' (your harddrive)

esbo

I would not bother to much the what crucial memory scanner says, it's like asking a newcar salesman if you need a new car. He will say yes whether you need one or not/

superscaper

esbo wrote: »

I would not bother to much the what crucial memory scanner says, it's like asking a newcar salesman if you need a new car. He will say yes whether you need one or not/

The point of the OP using crucial scanner is to determine the right kind of compatible memory, not whether it's needs more or not.

motorguy

superscaper wrote: »

The point of the OP using crucial scanner is to determine the right kind of compatible memory, not whether it's needs more or not.

+1

It'll tell you exactly what your machine can take, removing the risk of error.

Donnie

No need for all that Crucial palaver.... Standard memory 1 x 1024MB DDR2 667 MHz.

1 GB 13.49 all in.


As much as people here love to bang on about Crucial, they DO supply the less compatible High Density memory.

Donnie

pgilc1 wrote: »

+1

It'll tell you exactly what your machine can take, removing the risk of error.

Nonsense.... if you machine requires PC 2100, but they only stock PC2700, guess what their search tool will show?

Yes, you can still use it, but I prefer to use a tool that tells me exactly what is IN my machine, not just what Crucial wants to sell to me.

CLLC

Thank you all so much for your answers

So, i definetely have a thorough understanding about RAM now

But i was wondering why it is using up so much PHYSICAL MEMORY USAGE, it says i'm using 835 MB out of 1000 MB???

Isn't that high? :?:

esbo

CLLC wrote: »

Thank you all so much for your answers

So, i definetely have a thorough understanding about RAM now

But i was wondering why it is using up so much PHYSICAL MEMORY USAGE, it says i'm using 835 MB out of 1000 MB???

Isn't that high? :?:

Not really windows basically uses as much memory as it can and leave things there
when they are not curently needed.
For example when I run a program to analyse a lot of files on the drive it takes a long time to run ititally because it has to load the files into memory from the relatively slow (mechanical) hard drive. However if I quit that program and then
later run the program again it will run a lot faster, about 10 times or more
faster because the contents of those files are left in memory 'just in case'.
So the first run might take hours, the second run mere minutes. That's why it leaves
stuff laying around in memory it does not really need at the moment.
However sometimes if I run some other programs in between that data willl have
been overwritten and need to be slowly loaded from the hard drive again.
So however much memory you have windows tends to fill it to a certain extend,
and when it says it is in use most of it is not really use at all and can happily be
overwritten.

Are you using Vista by the way? That tends to use a fair bit more memory than
my windows XP. If you are using Vista then maybe you could justify an extra GB
of memory.

Maybe a good test is to see how quickly you can swittch between application windows, if it is slow and you can hear a lot of disk activity then maybe some
more memory would help.

Maybe you might find this useful:-
http://blog.bluecog.co.nz/archives/2007/02/26/windows-vista-memory-usage/

And note a comment there "Unused RAM is wasted RAM…"
So however big your 'glass' windows will tend to fill it. Windows views high
memory usage as a good thing.
You might see some benefit from an extra GB of memory, it certainly won't
do any harm, it's just a question of whether the probably small improvemnt you see is worth the money. A lot of it boils down to what you use the computer for.
You would probably get some sort of placebo effect that your compter was faster
just by buying more RAM.
Anyway I use XP and my memory usage always seems to be between 600MB
and 800MB whatever I am doing. So as i have 1250 physical RAM about 500MB
just never seems to be used.
Anyway that is how I understand it anyway, it might not be totally correct as it i a bit
of a 'black art' but I don't think it is far off.