Source: Tom's Guide | Keywords: troubleshoot, upgrade, fix | Themes: Desktop Computers
13. Memory
With today’s prices on RAM, you have no good reason to scrimp on memory for Windows; you’ll pay a lot more in lost time and system crashes. For current machines running Windows, a realistic minimum amount of RAM is 512MB, with 1GB or 2GB highly worthwhile and not all that expensive. More memory is probably the best upgrade you can make to a computer.
Consult the instruction manual for your motherboard or contact the maker of your PC to determine the type of RAM, its module design (RIMM, DIMM, SIMM, SO-DIMM), its speed, and the upgrade path.
Cross-Reference
For more information about considering types of memory and troubleshooting the memory in your system, check out Chapter 8.
Some motherboards require you to upgrade in blocks of a particular amount. Other PCs cheat their owners by inefficient use of the motherboard; these designs may require you to throw away perfectly good SIMMs or DIMMs of small capacity and replace them with larger blocks of memory. But do you really have to throw away perfectly good memory? No. Check the ads in the back pages of computer magazines for memory specialists who may buy used memory or accept it in trade for new, larger blocks of memory.
Memory prices are sometimes very volatile; the best price for RAM can shift from one source to another based on supply. In general, you can find good prices at mail-order companies that specialize in memory during times when RAM is plentiful. These companies usually buy on the spot market and can take advantage of downturns quickly. When RAM is scarce, you may find better prices through major manufacturers who have long-term contracts with memory makers that may predate current price increases.
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Not bad, but I'll take a few exceptions:
1 - cleaning up and defragmenting your hard disk is Windows specific.
The Microsoft block allocator is brain dead, was made that way, and will remain so for as long as Diskeeper and Norton Systemworks create revenue: a Mac OS X, xBSD or Linux-based system doesn't need defragmentation(*), as it is done by the OS on every disk access. You can get efficient defragmentation by:
- disabling System Restore: it doesn't work very well anyway, is a virus nest, and eats up to 6 Gb on your hard disk.
- setting your swap file to a fixed size.
- disabling file system indexing.
- deleting DrWatson's log.
- running Ccleaner once in a while with most settings enabled: once you have applied hotfixes, you don't need the uninstall files anyway. You'll need to clean up IE7's and WMP's patches yourself though.
- make Pagedefrag run at every boot after 0 second wait: the first time it may take a while to run, but it'll keep the Registry and swap file in one piece.
(*)to be fair, such a system may still fragment if you fill up a partition with huge files when it is already more than 80% full - Windows will fragment any file if you get past 10% partition capacity. Some say it's a way to prevent data corruption, as usually adjacent sectors are more likely to get corrupted, but then if that's the case Windows doesn't fragment ENOUGH.
2 - a resident antivirus is a resource drain.
Using a limited user account, a well configured firewall (in software or hardware, preferably both), and scanning downloaded files before you run them (and not making use of MS Outlook Express, which runs files for you) will keep you safe enough.
Not using IE may help, too: Opera or Firefox can operate as pure user level processes. Firefox 3 will be able to notify antivirus when a file is downloaded (if it interacts well with ClamAV, you can dump Norton and forget about the yearly AV tax).
3 - power surge protection.
A sound advice. However, a beefy PSU that you change every 1-2 years and a good power surge preventer are, in my experience, less costly and more efficient than a pack of batteries you'll need to renew every year. A good PSU in great shape can handle brown-outs, especially if your system doesn't draw too much current, and a surge protector will cover the PSU's most damaging attack. Changing the PSU regularly ensures that its capacitors remain at peak efficiency, and that its voltage regulators work as required. It is also unsound to clean up a PSU (it's dangerous!), so getting a new one is the most efficient way to get a clean one. With Vista, no UPS lasts long enough to allow you to save your files and shut down a system cleanly.
Clutz. I eat and drink around mine everyday and I've never once spilled so much as a drop of milk.
Milk eh?
I'd suggest keeping your files on a NAS drive or USB external drive and formatting your MS OS every year.
Besides running a limited account try Virtual Machines for avoiding those pesky viruses