Anyone had lack of RAM issues with Win 7 and 3GB RAM while running a charting package, a few front ends and a browser streaming music?
I ask this in anticipation of buying a cut and dry traveling trading platform. A highly active disk drive for no (other) logical reason, might indicate RAM issues.
So any particular reason not to use more ram? Especially laptops should have more than a desktop, and my desktop has 8 Yeah, I know - manufacturers are behind. Sadly. 3gb sounds challenging these days. Especially as it is likely with shared memory (no dediccated graphics memory) which rtakes out some more memory. Low end office computer, as it looks, sadly.
You can go into the Windows Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del), and view CPU and RAM usage. Sometimes machines slow down because of Virus protection running too much crap in the background or Windows and other software updates. You could also be wasting windows resources on your video card. If it's internal, it is using RAM and other resources slowing down your computer. A desktop with an external video card would be much faster.
The DDR3 memory clips are very affordable these days. The best is to buy some extra memory. Agree that you should use the Task Manager to check on the actual memory usage and see how much are in use/available/etc.. Note 2 things: 1) Windows 7 by default has the aero peek turned on. (e.g. fanny alt-tab to switch between different apps, transluscent title bar, etc.). Those tend to eat up system resources (CPU cycles and memory). You may want to turn them off. 2) Many box makers would stuff the desktop computers that they sell with not-so-useful apps (e.g. trial anti-virus, media control, etc.). You may want to un-install those apps that you don't need.