Memory, Pages/Sec excessive

[chrisbr68]

Hi everyone,

Ive had the same laptop since about 5 years ago. It came with win ME, but I ran XP Pro on it since many of the inbuilt features I found really useful.

Anyway, I didnt notice this over the first few years, but over the last year I feel the performance is really suffering. I looked at the performance and it looks as though Memory, Pages/Sec is the culprit. The hard drive goes mental when I do just about anything!

I have done some reading on this, and a lot of pages say the memory needs expanding. Im running a dell 800 celeron with 128 MB. I would suspect this is correct, since new software over the years has become more memory intense and I havnt kept up with the times.

However, a Microsoft page said that this is sometimes a misconception - but offered no further explanation. I also read that networking protocols and what not may be allocated to RAM, leaving little left for everyday programs - over the last 6 months Ive been using a wireless connection through the laptop.

This leads me to believe I really need to expand the RAM, but I fear it is not possible on an Inspiron 2500 from 5 years ago.

I dont really have the ££ for a new laptop, does anyone have any suggestions? This noise from the hard drive is making my ears ring I hear it so much!!

Thanks in advance.

[aldi]

128mb=Upgrade the RAM! If it's five years old it *probably* needs a PC133 SDRAM SODIMM.

Edit: Like this:
www.crucial.com/store/listparts.aspx?model=Inspiron+2500+Series

Edited by aldi on Saturday 11th November 16:17

[chrisbr68]

aldi said:

128mb=Upgrade the RAM! If it's five years old it *probably* needs a PC133 SDRAM SODIMM.

Edit: Like this:
www.crucial.com/store/listparts.aspx?model=Inspiron+2500+Series

Edited by aldi on Saturday 11th November 16:17

Thanks Aldi. I havnt opened it yet, but since I upgraded to 128 over 64 when it was new, I wonder if they went for 2x64 or 1x128. Probably the former

Cheers again!

[GreenV8S]

I'm typing this on a similar vintage Inspiron 2500 which came with 256MB but now has 512MB of RAM, I had all sorts of problems with the extra RAM which went away when I upgraded to XP. You're already there so you shouldn't have any problems.

Before you do the upgrade though, look at the prices and see whether it would be more cost effective to buy a new PC with more memory, faster CPU, more disk space etc. I suspect it will be.

[chrisbr68]

Hi V8,

I saw 128 for £23, or 256 for ~£60 odd. I had a quck look at new laptops which seem to start at around £300 and with Christmas coming up I would rather hold out. Hopefully a new job will provide me with one next year anyway

Cheers.

[GreenV8S]

Check whether you have a spare memory slot, if not then you will have to throw your existing memory away which increases the cost. I seem to remember that either the scan or crucial (forget which) online memory checker will detect this for you, or take the cover of to check for yourself.

[Zad]

Yeah, but the catch is that the new £300 laptop will probably only have 128 or 256MB of memory and a slow hard drive, and you will still need to upgrade it!

[GreenV8S]

Zad said:

Yeah, but the catch is that the new £300 laptop will probably only have 128 or 256MB of memory and a slow hard drive, and you will still need to upgrade it!

It'll probably come with 256MB, 60GB SATA drive, 11G card, widescreen, DVD writer etc and be a better spec all round than the lumbering old Inspiron 2500. That's before you get into any issues of hardware reliability on the older machines, does the old battery hold any charge at all any longer and so on.

[GreenV8S]

chrisbr68 YHM