Do I need to buy more memory?

[Jonathan]

Hi,
I need advice on buying memory. I have a Dell Inspiron 8200
notebook with 512MB memory installed. Lately the machine is a little sluggish if I multitable and have 2+2 open at the same time, and I'm wondering if more memory will do the trick.

When I look at the typical performance numbers on my machine
I get something like this:

523MB TOTAL
296MB in use
178MB FREE

Does this mean I have plenty to spare, or that I am thrashing and should buy 1GB of physical memory?

Thanks for the advice.

Suerte,
Jonathan

[RunDownHouse]

If I can piggyback on this, I just got a new Dell 4700 set up. I only got 256MB because the upgrades were a bit pricey and I figured I could stick more memory in myself more cheaply. But I have no idea how much I need (all I really use it for is 3-4 tabling, IMing, maybe surfing concurrently).

Buy just another 256? 512? 1GB?

[dcssullivan]

Assuming you're both using Windows XP, I would say that the first poster is OK memory wise. You may be a little on the short end, but it's a notebook, and notebook memory is much more expensive. Also, considering it's a notebook, the integrated video card on it may not be very strong, which could slow things down, and there may also be issues with hard drive access. Check for other things that could be slowing it down though (extra processes running at startup, spyware, etc). If you can cut down on the extra processes it really shouldn't slow down.

To The second poster, I always recommend at least 512MB to run windows XP smoothly.

[Jonathan]

Yes, I'm running XP home ediion.

I have a Pentium 4 2.2 Ghz processor with a Mobility
Radeon 9000 video card (I think with 512KB video cache...not sure).

one process I run at startup is Microsoft Messenger. Is this a big hog? Should I eliminate stuff like my mouse controller from startup?

Thanks,
Jonathan

[RunDownHouse]

Ugh, who needs XP?

2k Pro is the only Windows for me. But if 512 total is enough to get by with XP, it should be enough for me, I think. Thanks for the help.

[kross]

[ QUOTE ]
Ugh, who needs XP?

2k Pro is the only Windows for me. But if 512 total is enough to get by with XP, it should be enough for me, I think. Thanks for the help.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, XP does boot almost twice as fast as 2K. For desktop users, this isn't a big deal, since most people leave them on all the time. But it is a big deal for laptop users.

[Freakin]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Ugh, who needs XP?

2k Pro is the only Windows for me. But if 512 total is enough to get by with XP, it should be enough for me, I think. Thanks for the help.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, XP does boot almost twice as fast as 2K. For desktop users, this isn't a big deal, since most people leave them on all the time. But it is a big deal for laptop users.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hibernate.

Freakin