Should I upgrade my memory?
I have a Dell laptop with 128 mb RAM, using Windows 98, connected with
a cable modem. Seems to work fine but I'm wondering if performance
would notably improve if I upgraded to, say, 256mb Ram. I don't edit
photos or play games. Is it possible to tell if I'm close to reaching
"capacity?" How can I determine if a memory upgrade would be
worthwhile?

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Request for Question Clarification by slawek-ga on 23 Sep 2002 22:56 PDT

What speed CPU do you have?  It is possible that adding more RAM will
not help, since the CPU will be the bottle neck.  Give us some more
specs on your system, and we will be able to answer your question
better.

Regards,
slawek-ga

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Request for Question Clarification by joseleon-ga on 23 Sep 2002 23:08 PDT

Hello:
  Do you plan to upgrade to Windows 2000 or Windows XP? If not, the
memory upgrade won't be worth, because Windows 98 won't use all your
memory.

Regards.

<i>Should I upgrade my memory?
I have a Dell laptop with 128 mb RAM, using Windows 98, connected with
a cable modem. Seems to work fine but I'm wondering if performance
would notably improve if I upgraded to, say, 256mb Ram. I don't edit
photos or play games. Is it possible to tell if I'm close to reaching
"capacity?" How can I determine if a memory upgrade would be
worthwhile?</i>

monreale-

As a general guideline, adding memory is the cheapest way to improve
system performance. Even without memory-hog programs like the photo
editors and games that you mention, extra RAM can be used by the rest
of your system. Believe it or not, with less memory it's the speed of
your hard drive that becomes the bottleneck, not your processor. The
reason for this is that Windows 'swaps' data from RAM to the hard
drive when RAM becomes scarce (and because Windows 98 isn't very good
at managing memory, swapping is likely even when it seems like there
is plenty of RAM left). Hard drives are very slow, so all of this
copying back and forth can slow everything down considerably.

I would definately recommend adding the extra memory, both for the
immediate benefits you will recieve, as well as paving the way to the
jump to Windows 2000 or XP. With programs such as Word and Internet
Explorer requiring more and more memory (right now on my system, IE6
is using 22M all on its own!), what seemed like a comfortable amount
of RAM 4 years ago is inadequate today.

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Request for Answer Clarification by monreale-ga on 24 Sep 2002 16:31 PDT

My processor speed is 400MH. Does your answer remain the same with this info?

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Clarification of Answer by twitch-ga on 24 Sep 2002 23:12 PDT

"My processor speed is 400MH. Does your answer remain the same with
this info?"

Without a doubt, and perhaps even more so. As I stated before, a boost
in RAM is the cheapest way to improve system performance. My guess is
that you use your computer to compose documents, browse the Internet,
stay in touch with friends and whatnot. Your CPU is quite capable of
performing these tasks, but you will definately notice a performance
enhancement with the extra memory. Upgrading a CPU on a laptop is
nowhere near as simple as it would be with a desktop system- mostly
due to the fact that replacing your motherboard (which, if you want
one of the newer 1Ghz+ clock speed chips, is a requirement) is both
difficult and expensive. So you other options for increasing
performance are purchasing a new laptop, purchasing a new desktop
system, or bumping up your RAM. The memory upgrade is by far the most
cost-effective option.

I was well satisfied with this answer, including the answer
clarification, and intend to follow the recommended course. I rated it
one star short of perfection because the answerer did not comment on
the various comments posted by other answerers to my question.

monreale...

I have to respectfully disagree with joseleon.
While I've heard that WIN98 won't recognize
more than 256M RAM, I used WIN98 up 'til last
week, and noticed a major difference in upgrading
from 128 to 256MB. This was evidenced by a program
I used called RAMBOOSTER, which keeps track of RAM
usage, and reclaims RAM as needed. I frequently had
200+ RAM in use, and needed RAMBOOSTER to increase
available RAM, which saves a lot of crashes and 
freezes. One advantage to the increase is that you
can configure Windows to use the swapfile less, and 
RAM more. Since RAM is faster, you will notice a 
difference in the speed.

I didn't post this as an answer since I'm not familiar
with how the CPU could be the bottleneck, as suggested
by slawek. But off the bat, I'd say go for it!

sublime1-ga

whether you need more memory or not purely depends on what you use
your computer for. Having more memory per se wont make windows go
faster.

For instance if you have a lot of programs open at the same time or
are editing large databases or spreadsheets, it's more likely you are
reaching the upper limit of physical memory. When you do reach it you
should notice slowdown as the computer will use some of your harddrive
as extra memory. Slowdown occurs as the computer has to swap programs
between memory and the harddrive (which is much slower).

Ramboosters work by making memory use more efficient but it cant
really increase memory as such, just cleverly swaps programs around
between the harddrive and the harddrive. But i think how good it is
depends again on how you use programs/computer.
You can get it here: http://www.sci.fi/~borg/rambooster/

Otherwise what you need is some sort of memory monitor.
there's some programs here:
WebAttack
http://www.webattack.com/freeware/system/fwmemory.shtml

One called Memviewer is simple. i've just installed it. there a
floating bar
that shows memory usage and a systemtray icon that you can make show %
or amount of memory being used.

for me on win2k it shows i'm using about 260mb. win2k usually takes
about 80mb by itself, and then i have a network sniffer using 34mb, 4
IE windows and at least6 other programs open or in the system tray.
it should give u an idea.

Even better tho would be one that shows usage over time.  

hope this helps

~Andy

Here are some benchmarks comparing Windows 2000 and Windows98SE
systems using varying amounts of RAM:

http://www.crucial.com/win2000/benchmarks.asp

They seem to indicate that performance does not increase significantly
with more than 128MB of RAM.

A better upgrade to improve performance may be to upgrade your
operating system to either Windows 2000 or Windows XP. Or upgrade both
your memory and your operating system if you can.

Also, before you consider upgrading your memory, you should make sure
that you get rid of any unnecessary programs running in the background
which are eating your memory. Many people have spyware, ad-ware, or
other hidden programs running in the background without realizing it.
The site http://www.spywareinfo.com/ has good info on identifying
those programs and information on how to disable them as well.