Tips N Tweaks 1

For the first Tips N Tweaks article, lets talk about the single most important, easiest and one of the cheapest means of improving the performance of any computer - RAM.  RAM or Random Access Memory is the one part of the computer that is fairly easy to upgrade or add once you know what type your computer supports.  Having enough RAM is absolutely crucial in that all of the programs, hardware and the operating system all take up different sized chunks of memory as soon as you turn the computer on. 

Having more than enough RAM to run your computer and all of the software installed is extremely important.  Installing the maximum amount of RAM that your computer motherboard will support makes sure that the use of what is called virtual memory is at a minimum.  Virtual Memory is a portion of your hard drive that is used in place of RAM for temporarily storing programs, data, device drivers, etc.  And whenever a computer needs to use this, slows down system performance considerably!

When you buy RAM for your computer, you must make sure that the modules are of the proper type, speed and capacity that your motherboard supports.  Additionally, the “type” of RAM actually consists of several more characteristics that must also be properly matched to your motherboard and CPU.  These characteristics or attributes include how many electrical contacts that the module has, where the key notch is on the module, the type of memory it is (i.e. DDR, DDR2, DDR3, SIMM, DIMM, etc.), whether or not modules must be installed in pairs, the front side bus speed, latency and so on.

Whenever you install or handle RAM, be sure that you are properly grounded to the CPS or computer to protect from ESD.  RAM is very susceptible to ESD!

To learn more about adding RAM to your CPS, protecting against ESD and what all of the other technical stuff means, I would highly recommend reading my book Introduction to Computer DJing & CPS.

Tags: computer dj, cps, cpu, digital dj, esd, introduction to computer djing and cps, laptop dj, ram

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 19:39 and is filed under Computer DJing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.