| It's kind of a law of nature: your computer slows down | | | | memory. Swapping information to your hard drive |
| over time even though nothing seems to have | | | | takes a lot longer than switching it around in memory. |
| changed. This has been happening to computers over | | | | A memory upgrade is simple enough to do yourself - |
| the years and early on, it was probably kind of true. | | | | there are plenty of tutorials online to show you how - |
| But in reality nowadays it's not your computer getting | | | | or your local computer store will be happy to help you |
| slower, it's all the stuff that gets added to it when you | | | | for a small fee. The whole operation should be over |
| install software or even just save or delete a file. After | | | | quickly - it will probably take you longer to unscrew the |
| all, you current computer is probably not that old. It's | | | | screws on the case than it will to upgrade the RAM. |
| likely running XP or Vista. Why should you spend | | | | It's then a matter of earthing yourself (touch a water |
| hundreds of dollars replacing it, especially when you | | | | pipe, for instance) so you don't suddenly jab your |
| know deep down that it will only start slowing down | | | | machine with static electricity. Then just add the extra |
| again as soon as you've bought a new PC. So how to | | | | RAM in the slots that are almost certainly sitting |
| make your computer faster again without buying a | | | | vacant. If it's only print jobs that are running slow, do |
| new machine? What can you do to breathe some life | | | | the same treatment for your printer if it's possible. |
| into your computer and make it a joy to use again? | | | | Color lasers especially will appreciate any extra |
| Firstly, check how much memory your machine has. | | | | memory you give them and will allow Windows to |
| Windows always has liked to use lots of memory and | | | | pass them across more of the printing job, freeing up |
| modern operating systems like XP and Vista are | | | | your machine for other tasks. Putting extra memory in |
| especially greedy. If your machine has less than 2Gb | | | | your printer works much the same way as adding it to |
| of RAM memory, it's time to treat it and you to more. | | | | your main computer. I've done this to printers in the |
| No matter what the "in your dreams" minimum | | | | past and they've really appreciated it - their print |
| requirements there were on the box of the operating | | | | performance came right up to the advertised pages |
| system. Upgrading your memory to this level will make | | | | per minute speed rather than the speed you'd expect |
| near enough everything on your computer run faster. If | | | | from an ancient dot matrix. If that still doesn't do |
| Windows doesn't have enough memory to work with, | | | | enough to make your computer faster, there are other |
| it will use space on your hard disk as an alternative. | | | | things you can try as well. |
| But hard disks are lots, lots slower than regular | | | | |