Why Is It Important To Upgrade My Laptop RAM & What Is It?

Even people who are not computer experts understand that a laptop RAM upgrade is good for making your unit work faster but not a lot of people actually understand what RAM means and what it actually does to make the laptop function smoother. In a short explanation, RAM stands for Random Access Memory. This is temporary memory that is used only when something is actually running on the forefront of the computer. The best way to think of RAM is to look at a school blackboard. Think of the teacher’s mind and books as hard drives where knowledge is permanently installed. When the teacher wants to display what is on his mind to the students he needs a temporary medium. That medium is the blackboard. It is going to display what is inside the teacher’s mind only for a temporary period and can be erased when something else needs to be displayed.

RAM works exactly the same way. Whenever you load a program from your computer, it is the RAM that is responsible for currently running memory space. Some software requires very minimal on-the-spot memory so even a small amount of RAM will do fine. Unfortunately however as time goes by programs have gotten complicated and very heavy in computer terms. Even a word processor would require a decent amount of memory space to function properly. Computers are built for multitasking however and you may find yourself using a word processor along with a web browser, a video and music player as well as a downloading tool all at the same time. What happens when you do not have enough RAM?

Why a laptop RAM upgrade is important:

When you have a lot of software running at the same time, most likely you do not have a lot of RAM to accommodate them at the same time. What the computer does is depend on VMM or virtual memory management. It will dedicate your computer’s memory completely to the currently running program. Say for example you have a browser open and a word processor open at the same time. You haven’t checked the browser for a while as you have been typing away on the word processor for the past thirty minutes. The VMM focuses your RAM and computer processing completely to the word processor since that is the program you are currently running. When you minimize the word processor and choose to use the browser again, the VMM will swap the dedicated memory and focus it on the browser. When you have very little RAM, your computer is constantly swapping and this is what causes delays. It can be really irritating especially if you are running programs that require a lot of active memory such as photo editing software or video editing software. Video games require even more RAM since a lot of things are running all at the same time on the screen.

Getting a lot of RAM will help your computer accommodate these complications. Of course RAM is not the only thing that works to make a laptop fast. You still need to depend on the computer’s processing speed and the video card or graphics card you have. Still, getting a lot of RAM is a good place to start upgrading your computer. The processor comes next and then the graphics card. Most programs today will run at their optimal level with just 2GB of RAM although really heavy video games and editing software may require all the way up to 8GB of RAM.

Is it easy to upgrade laptop RAM?

There was a time when upgrading anything on a laptop was a nightmare since older models had memory and other cards all integrated onto the board but this is no longer the case. Laptops are now built exactly like a desktop computer, albeit compact, so pretty much everything on the motherboard can be replaced. The process to upgrading your laptop RAM is actually really easy. All you need to do is take a quick look at your laptop manual and check what kind of memory module is compatible with your motherboard. If you can’t find the information you can just take your laptop to any computer hardware store and they’ll be able to determine it for you.

Once you figure that out you can buy the higher RAM module you want. Say for example a person with just 512MB of RAM is upgrading to hold 2GB of RAM. The regular price for just 2GB of RAM these days can be anywhere from $15 to $25. Of course the price goes higher as you go up the scale for more powerful RAM modules.

After getting the memory modules you will need a screwdriver, most likely a Philipp’s screwdriver. The process is actually very easy to follow. Just follow these steps to upgrade your laptop RAM:
Turn your laptop off and then turn it upside down with the bottom facing upRemove the battery from the laptopUse the screwdriver to remove the panel covering the currently installed memory modulesUnclasp the memory modules and then replace them with the new onesClasp these tight and then screw in the panelPut the batter back on

Afterwards all you need to do is turn on the laptop. It might go run BIOS checks for it to identify and run the newly installed RAM. This process will not take more than five minutes. Once the computer boots completely and you are on your desktop, everything is done and ready. You will almost automatically notice that the new RAM is working. Software doesn’t lag to open, there is no delay when you switch between programs and RAM-heavy programs will not slow down as often since the memory is now able to compensate their needs.

Of course you could simply just have the people at the computer store install the memory modules for you and they can run a test to double check if it is all working as intended. It can all be accomplished in fifteen minutes and for less than $50. If you really want to upgrade from a slow running computer then your first step is to go for laptop RAM upgrade.

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