My Compaq had 128 megabytes of RAM when I bought it as a display unit back in September 2003. By 2006 I had it increased to 384 megabytes. It didn't seem to make it any faster at loading up. So this month of this year I maxed out the RAM to 1,024 megabytes - commonly known as a whole gigabyte. I bought two 512 megabyte memory cards certified compatible for my machine. I still really can't see much difference in it's ability to load pages or play short video clips.

found this on a forum...

Adding more RAM (don't go above 512meg in Windows versions before XP) allows far less use of the Hard Disk as "Virtual Memory". Hard Disk's are many thousands of times slower than actual RAM, so the only time you might notice a speed improvement was when the Hard disk was active and buzzing away furiously as system RAM ran out. It's a very marginal speed boost at best...you might be able to blink in the time saved!

Upgrading the CPU is another thing entirely. The computer will be quicker and more snappy, but again there will be absolutely no speed boost to "downloading music or videos or stuff like that".

Why? To boost transfer speeds, and lower downloading times, you need a faster internet connection!

I won't talk about uploading/downloading speeds as I'm on dial-up

Eventually I will be going to either a wireless type of internet or DSL. When or if they ever do get it all hooked up way out here in the sticks. They do have the wireless internet available out here though. It uses a radio transceiver with that double circle type outdoor antenna. No, I'm not talking about satellite internet like Hughes Net or Wild Blue, that's too expensive.

i started out with netzero dialup, and when i switched to at&t high speed, it was a night and day difference as far as page loading and watching videos. now, some movies i watch on line stop and buffer, so i tried adding more memory, but the buffering continues

Yeah. Even a boat anchor computer with a faster connection can make a tremendous difference.

The RAM not improving could be due to a couple different things. One instance would be the configuration of the motherboard slots are for dual RAM (I forget the actual name for this). However, the RAM slots must be filled on both sides (their are two or three rows side by side in this configuration of DIMM slots). The point is if you put one card in a slot and the slot next to it was not occupied it would not function properly. They need to be side by side otherwise it will not recognize the card properly. That is one occasion that I know of that would not improve performeance if you upgraded your RAM.

I only have two slots on the motherboard and both are filled with 512 MB RAM.

You would be better off investing in a newer laptop with a machine that old. Also upgrade to broadband, you can get pretty cheap now a days.

Except broadband isn't available yet where he's at.

Yeah I can tell by the numbers your throwing out there that this pc were talking is not right off the shelf. There could be a few different reasons for it not showing an improvement though. Right now I am going through my hardware book for the 2nd time for the CompTIA exam in software and hardware.

I feel like saying


do you have shortcuts on your desktop or the actual programs becuase if you have the actaul programs sitting on your desktop it will chew up your primary memory (RAM) topping out at 1 gb and prolly already creating virtual memory on your hdd; thus you would not notice a difference becuase it is not doing anything it was not doing before you purchased your ram cards.

Virtaul memory is created when the ram cards are full. Since your @ 1gb right now it might be doing this now as it was before .. meaning you notice little difference as the cards are full.

This is just a guess. Stands a chance of what is going on but hard to tell and theoretical at this point.

Surprised no one told them RAM will not increase your browsing speed. The only speed improvements will be on commonly used processes like start up and programs you use often because it can store more of this things in memory. your connection will be your biggest issue followed by your processor on how fast it can process the data you are downloading.

Broadband isn't available out here deep in the sticks. The only other alternative to dial-up is wireless internet (using a radio transceiver, outdoor antenna) or satellite internet. Just like satellite TV, you'll lose your internet with heavy cloud cover, high winds and good old lake effect snowfall.

I was using WUHU, which stands for Weather Underground/Heavyweather Uploader. The auto refreshing graphs could be using up the RAM. I was also running the Heavy Weather Pro software for my PWS - personal weather station. But all of that is gone since the computer was hacked into back in mid May. According the the tech, the hacking was directed mostly at the WUHU uploader tool. Apparently someone didn't want me to upload my own weather data onto Weather Underground. Conflict of interests I guess. I had to take the PC in to get it unlocked. It would load up like it normally does, but whenever I click on a desktop icon, the start button, etc - the computer would freeze solid.

Most of the drivers on this PC are either messed up or severally damaged. Windows web site cannot recognize my software as being legit. I had Avast antivirus and that crashes every time I load it up. I have Norton that came with this PC and that CD will not load either. Malwarebytes will not load or install as well. The only one I did get installed and working is Spybot Search & Destroy and SpywareBlaster. C-Cleaner will not work. The newest Quicken version will not load up at all. Parts of Windows Media player malfunctions. I had IE8 but that crashed and burned. I'm running the latest version Google Chrome though.

I would go with Ubunto but that will not work with my personal weather station, nor does it work with dial-up internet connection. I ran the trial version and that is pretty darn kool!! It loads many times faster than Windows XP SP3 does.

I can't afford to have this computer completely re-worked at this time. So... will just have to do with what I have.

Do you still have all your software install CDs? If so it might be worth reformation your drive and wiping it clean.

I'm pretty sure your problem is temp garbage that has accumulated over many days/months/years (have seen this way too often) of usage. This can many times be cured (at least a bit) by removing the problem causers.

First, go into your browser and delete the temporary internet files.

Second, nuke the temp files that programs left behind.

To do this open up notepad and paste in one of the following lines:

Win9x/ME:
rmdir /s /q "%WINDIR%\\temp"
Win2k/XP/Vista/7:
rmdir /s /q "%USERPROFILE%\\Local Settings\\temp"

Save this as removetempfiles.bat on your desktop.

Double click this batch file and it will remove all the junk. On Vista/7 you may need to right click and Run as Admin. You will want to do this every now and then to keep your computer uncluttered from temp files.

After this reboot and hopefully there will be a vast improvement in speed. If not I still have a few more pieces of advice for getting your machine up to par. Good luck!