Memory Management
Hey Now -
Often time our pc's will freeze or not respond, then we wait unproductively. One action we can take is to view the process that is using the most memory & end it. Since usually the process consuming the most memory is the one causing the system to not respond.
If we are using a large amount of memory our systems will react slower & when there is not much memory used our systems will respond quickly. Memory is critical piece of hardware to our pc's & our productivity daily. Memory is one of the most important pieces of hardware & often called RAM (random access memory).
Memory Management - Monitoring & adjusting processes are two critical actions we can take to manage our memory.
Monitoring Memory in 7 & Vista has improved greatly from XP.
101 - View Processes by mem descending.
Task Manager Process Tab (Ctrl + Shift + Esc Hotkey to open Task Manager)
Resource Monitor - 7 & Vista have a much improved app compared to the traditional task manager. (click start pearl then type in Res & resource Monitor should be on the start menu to open)
Sort by Memory Descending - We can accomplish this by first ensuring the memory column is displayed (we can add columns such as peak mem on from the View menu --> select columns or right clicking on the column headers)
In 7 & Vista it's great since one the order is sorted every time we open the app after that memory will be sorted by desc. In XP we have to click 'mem' column header two times every time task manager is opened.
201 - Ending Processes
We can end a process by highlighting the process such as iexplore.exe then right clicking & selecting end tasks. Then confirm the end process.
301 - Minimizing Windows - By minimizing windows in some programs it will free memory. If a pc stops responding we can minimize all our windows (Win + M). For example Office apps such as Word & Outlook , Firefox 3.5 if it's minimized there will be memory free'd up so the system will respond quicker.
RAM Memory Hardware - We can see how much RAM is on a workstation by pressing the windows button & pause break. Win+PauseBreak. This will display the basic info regarding your system such as your processor/chip & RAM. Currently in my notebook my RAM shows 4G (2.62 usable)
We can buy memory for ~ $10 / gig now. Word to the motherboard! Currently a large percent of mother boards have a maximum of 4g. It's not too tuff or time consuming to buy more memory & install it on a notebook or desktop (my Mom can do it). By maxing out the memory installed we are also improving performance.
We should also keep in mind we now have ReadyBoost - Vista & beyond. We can easily use USB keys as memory (a really fast cache) doubling the amount of memory we have installed.
Memory & Managing our memory is critical to our productivity daily.
We can monitor & alter process to improve pc's performance at the same time our hardware is another factor we should be aware of.
As always all comments welcome!
Catto
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