If I have unused RAM, what is my bottleneck?

A

Adrian888

New Member
Hi. I am trying to optimize my new ASUS notebook because I only have 1 GB of RAM

I have installed Process Hacker 2 witch among other things, supplies me with a graphical representation of my RAM use over time, both physical and commit. (I have not been able to figure out the difference even after reading the wiki page on it)

According to this software, after doing some optimization, I no longer experience any peak usage that surpasses my available RAM.

My question is: If I am not surpassing my available RAM, but my computer is not responding instantly, what is bottle-necking my performance?

My guess would be maybe certain task have a maximum allocated amounted of RAM and the rest is in reserve? I don't understand why it could not just instantly change the allocation based on demand.

Thank you very much for any knowledge/help :)
-Adrian
 
What's your operating system and CPU?

Your hard drive could be slowing you down, but 1GB of RAM for Windows Vista and newer isn't really ideal. Even for XP these days I find 1GB is on the low-end.
 
Windows Starter 32 bit, they use it for small weaker notebooks like mine (Eee PC X101CH.) CPU is Intel® Atom™ N2600 (Dual Core; 1.6GHz) Processor

Why would my hard drive slow me down? Does it also use my hard drive as temporary memory?
 
Adrian888 said:
Windows Starter 32 bit, they use it for small weaker notebooks like mine (Eee PC X101CH.) CPU is Intel® Atom™ N2600 (Dual Core; 1.6GHz) Processor

Why would my hard drive slow me down? Does it also use my hard drive as temporary memory?
Click to expand...

It will most probably be your hard drive. Not everything is stored in memory. Say you have 100GB of data and 1GB of memory, obviously it can't have all 100GB of stored information loaded onto the 1GB of memory, so it only loads what is needed in that moment.

This has to be loaded from the hard drive though, which is the slowest component in your system. When you are opening a program it has to load the data from the hard drive into the memory, which is why it is not instantly open.

There is also another process at play here which you touched on yourself and that is what is called memory caching. An amount of your hard drive space is reserved to act as memory. It will try to put data in there that is accessed infrequently, but has to be stored in memory, so free up some RAM. It does this only when you are at or reaching the limit of your computer's memory. Once it starts to use the cache, you are then going to be limited further by the slower performance of your hard drive because it does not have to just send the program data over to memory once from the hard drive then let the RAM deal with it all the time you are using that program, the hard drive is then the memory itself as well, so it will constantly be slowing you down.


Also consider that netbooks aren't built for performance, your CPU isn't too strong, your hard drive will only be 5400RPM, so you have slower access times which will give worse performance, but it will save on battery power, you have little memory to play with. All of these factors mean that you won't have lightning quick performance, though with that said you shouldn't be experiencing sluggish performance either.

So to fix your problems, there would be two things you can do:


1. Get more memory. Your netbook can handle up to 2GB on a single SODIMM. Something like this http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-...-204-pin-non-ecc-unbuffered-lifetime-warranty

2. Get an SSD. It will replace your hard drive, give much better performance and give better battery life. The size will depend on your uses, the same as a hard drive. If you have few programs and files on your netbook because you have a main computer or back everything up or whatever else, you can get away with a 60GB SSD easily, which aren't too pricey. If you need more space, the prices can get fairly high for your larger drives
 
Yes, I would upgrade your RAM and hard drive - may as well get a small 64GB or 128GB SSD if this only a netbook. Even on SATA 3GB/s, an SSD will be noticeably faster than your 5400 RPM HDD. Given that a 128GB SSD can be had for about £70-80 these days, a 64GB one would only cost around £50 I reckon. Well worth spending the money.

I assume you have Windows 7 Starter x86? Even though it's only the Starter edition, 1GB of RAM is still quite a small amount. See if you can upgrade to 2GB if you can (no point going beyond about 3GB since it's only 32-bit) and you should be better off.
 
Hey thanks very much for the replies. I still have to read your replies a few more times to absorb all the information. I will definitely consider the upgrades if they are economical. My question was more theoretical. I don't really need the extra performance, I was more trying to optimize what I already had (removing unnecessary processes and programs), but if its pretty cheap could definitely use the upgrade.
 
Aww, can't upgrade the RAM on this model ( http://liliputing.com/2012/03/asus-eee-pc-x101ch-netbook-teardown.html ) ... there is no acess slot, the RAM is soldered on, and the RAM chip is smaller than most RAM chips so even a really confident solderer couldn't replace it. Looks like the same goes for SSD. Im not all the disapointed though, as I really just use this thing for emails, writing resumes, and looking up my next place to travel.

Somone did mention using and SD card as alocated RAM, ill have to look into that more.
 
Save your money for something different instead of spending good money to upgrade this.
With a Intel Atom N2600 1.6ghz processor there is only so much you can get out of it.
The netbook sells for $270 for a reason.
Just my opinion.
 
Adrian888 said:
Aww, can't upgrade the RAM on this model ( http://liliputing.com/2012/03/asus-eee-pc-x101ch-netbook-teardown.html ) ... there is no acess slot, the RAM is soldered on, and the RAM chip is smaller than most RAM chips so even a really confident solderer couldn't replace it. Looks like the same goes for SSD. Im not all the disapointed though, as I really just use this thing for emails, writing resumes, and looking up my next place to travel.

Somone did mention using and SD card as alocated RAM, ill have to look into that more.
Click to expand...

Yes you can do this with either a USB memory stick or SD card, however should you decide to do this go for the fastest read/write speeds you can rather than capacity
 
Aastii said:
There is also another process at play here which you touched on yourself and that is what is called memory caching. An amount of your hard drive space is reserved to act as memory. It will try to put data in there that is accessed infrequently, but has to be stored in memory, so free up some RAM. It does this only when you are at or reaching the limit of your computer's memory. Once it starts to use the cache, you are then going to be limited further by the slower performance of your hard drive because it does not have to just send the program data over to memory once from the hard drive then let the RAM deal with it all the time you are using that program, the hard drive is then the memory itself as well, so it will constantly be slowing you down.
Click to expand...

Are you saying that this is only an issue as my hard drive gets near full?
If I am not using a lot of my hard drive, is a hard drive upgrade at all necessary? And besides I don't think I can upgrade it anways.

There is of course external memory, but I am guessing that the computer cannot write to it at the same time that it is writing to the hard drive, and so it would give no performance benefit, even if there is a way to allocate external memory as extra hard drive.

Thanks again for the replies.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top