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Sluggish performing 2400! How improve?



 
 
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  #1  
Old March 21st 05, 09:16 PM
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Default Sluggish performing 2400! How improve?

My brother has a Dell 2400 system with 2.8ghx CPU....
256 megs ram.... and 30 gig hard drive. Running Win XP
Home

Man that thing seems slow to respond. Hard drive is
thrashing abt a lot too.

Im thinking just upping the ram could help a lot. Yes?

If yes.... would doubling RAM for total of 512 megs be
enough for home usage?
  #2  
Old March 21st 05, 09:34 PM
John & Frank
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Put as much memory on as you can afford!

512 Meg is still low for Win XP.

To see how much memory you are using, do CNTRL+alt+del and click on task
manager. Look at the Physical Memory totals. If available is 0, then you
will be maxing out the page file usage (seen on the bar graph)



  #3  
Old March 21st 05, 09:36 PM
Paul Riemerman
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I increased the ram on my 2300 from 256 megs to 768 megs and the speed
improved dramatically. I thinking going to 512 megs would be a major
improvement.

Paul Riemerman
wrote in message
...
My brother has a Dell 2400 system with 2.8ghx CPU....
256 megs ram.... and 30 gig hard drive. Running Win XP
Home

Man that thing seems slow to respond. Hard drive is
thrashing abt a lot too.

Im thinking just upping the ram could help a lot. Yes?

If yes.... would doubling RAM for total of 512 megs be
enough for home usage?



  #4  
Old March 21st 05, 09:51 PM
Tom Scales
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"Leythos" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 21 Mar 2005 20:34:18 +0000, John & Frank wrote:

Put as much memory on as you can afford!

512 Meg is still low for Win XP.

To see how much memory you are using, do CNTRL+alt+del and click on task
manager. Look at the Physical Memory totals. If available is 0, then
you
will be maxing out the page file usage (seen on the bar graph)


Under normal circumstances, for most non-graphics editing stations, 512MB
of RAM is the sweet-spot for XP. For most home users, anything above 512MB
will be wasted.

--

remove 999 in order to email me


Except that the 2400 uses shared memory. If your machine has a single DIMM
and an open slot (mine did), add a 512MB and you'll have 768. If it has a
pair of 128, add a 512 for 640. They don't have to be matched.

Tom


  #5  
Old March 21st 05, 10:10 PM
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I increased the ram on my 2300 from 256 megs to 768 megs and the speed
improved dramatically. I thinking going to 512 megs would be a major
improvement.


Thanks guys! I suspected as much

I would have bought the 4600 instead of the 2400
myself.... but brother just ordered cheapest Dell he
could find. sigh

Anyway..... should he buy RAm from crucial? What would
another 256 megs for the 2400 cost you think?
  #6  
Old March 21st 05, 10:21 PM
Tom Scales
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wrote in message
...
I increased the ram on my 2300 from 256 megs to 768 megs and the speed
improved dramatically. I thinking going to 512 megs would be a major
improvement.


Thanks guys! I suspected as much

I would have bought the 4600 instead of the 2400
myself.... but brother just ordered cheapest Dell he
could find. sigh

Anyway..... should he buy RAm from crucial? What would
another 256 megs for the 2400 cost you think?


Crucial is fine, but make sure he doesn't have 2x128. If he does, then you
won't have 512MB total. It only has TWO memory slots.

That said, for its purpose, the 2400 is a fine machine. I love mine.

Tom


  #7  
Old March 21st 05, 11:41 PM
NoNoBadDog!
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wrote in message
...
My brother has a Dell 2400 system with 2.8ghx CPU....
256 megs ram.... and 30 gig hard drive. Running Win XP
Home

Man that thing seems slow to respond. Hard drive is
thrashing abt a lot too.

Im thinking just upping the ram could help a lot. Yes?

If yes.... would doubling RAM for total of 512 megs be
enough for home usage?


As others have posted, increasing RAM will probably not give you a
significant boost in speed. The thrashing sounds like his hard drive has
not been defragged in a long time. I would recommend a thorough disk scan
followed by a defrag. It may help to run defrag, then reboot, turn off the
pagefile, defrag again, re-set the page file and reboot. While this last
scenario can take a long time to complete, it moves all files closer to the
center of the HDD, and the pagefile more towards the outer edges of the HDD,
where reads are fasted. If his HDD is nearly full, perhaps it is time to do
a little spring cleaning.


Depending on how long he has owned the computer, and how willing he is to
invest in time, I would also recommend a backup of critical data, followed
by a format and reinstallation, using the latest drivers for his particular
model.

Good Luck!

Bobby



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  #8  
Old March 21st 05, 11:53 PM
Tom Scales
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"NoNoBadDog!" mypants_bjsledgeATpixi.com wrote in message
...

wrote in message
...
My brother has a Dell 2400 system with 2.8ghx CPU....
256 megs ram.... and 30 gig hard drive. Running Win XP
Home

Man that thing seems slow to respond. Hard drive is
thrashing abt a lot too.

Im thinking just upping the ram could help a lot. Yes?

If yes.... would doubling RAM for total of 512 megs be
enough for home usage?


As others have posted, increasing RAM will probably not give you a
significant boost in speed. The thrashing sounds like his hard drive has
not been defragged in a long time. I would recommend a thorough disk scan
followed by a defrag. It may help to run defrag, then reboot, turn off
the pagefile, defrag again, re-set the page file and reboot. While this
last scenario can take a long time to complete, it moves all files closer
to the center of the HDD, and the pagefile more towards the outer edges of
the HDD, where reads are fasted. If his HDD is nearly full, perhaps it is
time to do a little spring cleaning.


Depending on how long he has owned the computer, and how willing he is to
invest in time, I would also recommend a backup of critical data, followed
by a format and reinstallation, using the latest drivers for his
particular model.

Good Luck!

Bobby


I completely disagree, as an owner of a 2400.

more ram WILL improve performance. He's trying to run XP in 192MB (once the
video memory is removed).

The thrashing is PAGING, not a need to defrag.

Tom


  #9  
Old March 22nd 05, 01:38 AM
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Crucial is fine, but make sure he doesn't have 2x128. If he does, then you
won't have 512MB total. It only has TWO memory slots.



OK


So I definitely need to crack open his 2400 and make
sure BOTh slots are not already being used, right?

If yes.... no way to check that without opening the
case? Anyway to do it via the OS system or some kind
of check via software?

His wife is VERY picky abt me doing anything to this PC
such as opening it up.... for fear of me screwing
something up (unlikely)
  #10  
Old March 22nd 05, 01:39 AM
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I completely disagree, as an owner of a 2400.

more ram WILL improve performance. He's trying to run XP in 192MB (once the
video memory is removed).

The thrashing is PAGING, not a need to defrag.


I did do a defrag over the weekend.... but still a lot
of thrashing.... so I agree and that's why I suspected
just not enough RAM
 




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