Upgrading your RAM could be the panacea for your super-slow computer

Time and time again, I come across stories of people who have slow computers but have room to upgrade their RAM. Ram, also known as memory, explains a place where information is temporarily stored while programs run on your computer. The more RAM you have, the faster your machine will perform in your daily operations, such as opening programs, working on them, and having multiple browser tabs open.

Initially, when your computer is running slowly, you should run a battery of cleaning and anti-malware programs. First, CCleaner, which is free (Google “CCleaner”), allows you to delete any unnecessary cookies and temporary files from your machine that might be bogging it down.

So it’s great to run a program like “malwarebytes” to make sure there’s no malware, spyware, or even viruses slowing down your computer. A more thorough and effective virus removal program (which is free) would be “Kaspersky virus removal tool”, which you can also find by searching Google for those keywords.

But, when you’ve used the arsenal of cleaning weapons and your machine is still running like a horse in a race with a sprained ankle, upgrading your ram might be the next step. If you’re running Windows Vista, for example, and have 2 gigabytes or less of RAM, even giving it another 1 gigabyte will make a world of difference. If the machine can go up to 4 gigabytes, which would mean you’re upgrading it by 2 gigabytes (if you already have 2 gigabytes currently), then that’s your best bet. Vista, in my opinion, requires too many resources to run and slows down computers.

I know what you may be thinking, the act of taking the machine apart and replacing the RAM chips is difficult. Here’s the big part. It really isn’t! Most desktop computers have 4 screws on the outer edges of the back that, once unscrewed, allow the side panels of the machine to slide back and out, giving you access to the innards of the computer.

For a fairly clear picture of the ram, with IDs on the image, check out this image. That paints a pretty clear picture of the RAM chips inside a computer, labeled and easy to see. To change or upgrade the RAM, all you’re doing is sliding the new chips into place and pushing them in until they click. There are two levers on either side of the outside of the slot that the ram is entering, which will click once the ram is in place. Apply pressure to the top of the ram chip, once it is in place, until you hear the sealing click. So, you are golden!

Thereafter you’ll need to change the settings in virtual memory to reflect the physical hardware changes you’ve made, which is a couple of clicks away and can be found here. But if you are not sure, seek professional help.

In general, taking a machine up to even a gigabyte more RAM than it previously had can do amazing things for the speed of the computer. A very helpful website for finding out what kind of RAM you need and how much RAM you can upgrade your computer to is called “memory giant” which you can also google. You will have the opportunity to enter your model computer, or have it scan your computer to determine what type of RAM you need and how much your computer can take.

I hope this has been helpful to those of you looking to speed up your computer by increasing RAM. Thank you for reading.