How Much Memory is on My Computer?

Memory or Ram questions come up quite often from customers that have slow computers. For some people, the MBs and the GBs get confusing, but they heard that the more they have, the faster their computer is supposed to be. This is true to some extent, but at some point, adding more memory won’t cause an appreciable increase in speed. At best, it might just support better multitasking, which will allow you to run more programs simultaneously without a significant decrease in performance.

Memory vs Hard Drive Storage

Hard Drive

A common mistake some people make concerning the function of computer Memory is thinking this is where your personal files are permanently stored. Not the case, as memory is just a temporary location where only a limited amount of system files are loaded from the Hard Drive to run Windows, as well as any data files you might have open. You can think of memory as sort of an electronic scratchpad the CPU uses to access data it is working with. That is why it is also called Random Access Memory or RAM. The Hard Drive is where “everything” is permanently stored, which includes Windows system files, your programs, and your data such as documents, pictures, and music, etc.

One of the preliminary checks I perform when diagnosing a slow computer, is to check the amount of available System Memory. Then I can get a ballpark idea of the performance I should expect. A slow computer with a low amount of system memory can explain some of the slowness, and might be a good candidate for a memory upgrade.

Shared Memory

If your computer uses Integrated or Onboard Video, some of your Memory will be shared with your onboard Video circuitry, decreasing the amount of memory available to the system. Integrated or Onboard Video means that your Video Card is built-in to your Motherboard as opposed to an add-on PCI, AGP or PCI-e Video Card. The amount of this shared memory can usually be changed manually in the BIOS, so it is possible to lower the amount shared with the Video Card, so that more is available to the system. The amount of shared memory on some systems may be significant enough to affect the overall performance of the computer. I usually don’t like to set it below 8 MB, although some older systems may work OK with 1 MB of shared memory. For people who just use their computer for email, word processing and basic internet surfing, you probably won’t even notice any degradation in the video quality with the lower setting. But if you require the higher resolution, you should consider adding more memory as well as installing an add-on Video Card.

Video Card

Add-on Video Cards have their own built-in memory and are recommended when you need to run video intensive programs like high-end games, AutoCad and other miscellaneous high-resolution digital graphics and video programs. But a slow computer with a large amount of system Memory probably has a software problem where some program or process is hogging too many system resources. Some resource hogs are benign and could be caused by one or more legitimate, but memory intensive programs running in the background. Once common cause for this is an Internet Security Suite from Symantec or McAfee. In cases where the hog needs to be running all the time as with an Antivirus program, you only choices are to deal with it or get rid of it and find something better like ESET Nod32 Antivirus. But then there is another common, but malignant cause for a slow computer … the dreaded Malware infection. Remove the malware and the problem will usually go away. But this is easier said than done. For help with Malware infections, visit our sister website at http://SpywareWarePreventionGuy.com.

So before you opt for a Memory (Ram) upgrade to fix your slow computer, ensure your computer is clean from any malware infections, and that your computer is tuned-up to get the most out of the Memory you already have. Then, if your computer still seems slow, you just might need more Memory.

How Do You Check How Much Memory is on Your Computer Now?

Checking how much Memory or Ram your computer has is quite easy, just follow the screenshots below. Although this procedure was made with a Windows 7 PC, the techniques also apply for Windows Vista and XP as well.

Follow the Steps in the picture above to open the System Properties window so you can view some basic information about your system, such as your Windows version, CPU type and amount of system Memory.