Re: Slow page loads and slow exits?
I've mixed them in a pinch and run it as non-ecc, but it's always better to have all the same kind of ram in all the slots. There are other timing aspects involved. The memory stick itself tells the MB what it is, and the MB will try to choose parameters that work for all, but especially with non-ecc memory, it's best to stick with all the same.
Modern disk runs at about 300 mb rate. Cheap lan runs at about 100 mb rate. the internet runs at about 1.0 mb rate on high speed DSL. Any pentium processer above 300 mhz shouldn't have trouble with internet page loads.
So what's the problem? If you do a CTL-ALT-DELETE, then select task list and processes, you'll find about a gazillion programs running in memory. About 30 - 40 of them are necessary, but a lot of them, including common ones like the Adobe reader quick load are totally unneeded, and core hogs to boot. Some are downright trojans, and they tend to be he worst power hogs. A lot of them are sales programs that use CPU power, and also a lot of internet time both tattling on you, and downloading advertisement. HP printer driver "update" processes are classic examples.
Basic lesson. A computer needs to have program code and the data it's working with in memory to work. If memory is full of something being used by another idle process, it has to offload some pages to disk, keep track of it as if it were in memory, and then use that space. What is created is virtual memory, where "memory" is distributed between hardware memory and a disk memory cache file. The most recently used pages are in hardware memory, with the rest on disk, and a control process keeps track of it all. Memory operates at between 100 and 1000 times faster than disk transfers, so the more memory you have, the less paging there is. If it's in a state that has to do a lot of paging, the results of installing more memory can be dramatic. It is, however, only part of the solution. The rest of it is to cut the fat out of the running processes. Sometimes only that step will take you over the hump.
Windows has a utility called msconfig that can manage what processes load at startup. You can uncheck what you think is unneeded, reboot and try it. If it's needed, it'll become apparent, and you can then put the check back. If you screw it up so bad it won't boot, you can boot it up in safe mode and put the check back. It's pretty safe to play with. Run the program, make a list of what you see might be surplus, google it and figure out if you want to try to run without it, and then uncheck some of them.
To get into the program do START - RUN , put msconfig in the blank, and hit run.
hope it helps
John
