increased RAM -- but sometimes performance is worse

I increased the RAM on my Compaq Presario SR2002X from 512M to 2G (both old
and new are the same speed, PC2-4200). Both the BIOS Setup and the System
dialog in the Control Panel show that they are using the new memory. As
expected, a variety of things run faster now. In particular, all those
security dialogs that come up and dim the desktop whenever you start some
system maintenance process. They used to be slow to appear, but now they
pop up almost immediately. Some programs start faster now -- the MSDN
library displays almost immediately now, and it used to take about 30
seconds to initialize.

The surprise is that some things run slower. One thing that is particularly
noticeable often occurs when entering text into a web page input area. With
each keystroke, I can see the caret moving across the white background, but
no characters appear. Sometimes I'll type in five or six keystrokes before
it gets around to painting the characters behind the cursor. Another occurs
with crossword puzzles displayed in Flash objects, such as the one in the
daily L.A. Times. For these crossword puzzles, first you have to poke a
puzzle-selection button; then it pops up a dialog with a choice of "regular"
or "master" skill level. The pop-up used to display instantly; now there's
a delay of about three seconds.

Why would some things run slower after an increase in RAM??

Thanks,
Jeff

When dealing with the internet the amount of RAM nor the speed of your
system has anything to do with it. It all has to do with the speed of your
connection.
In other words if your machine was ten (10) times faster from a hardware
stand point than my machine, if my connection to the internet was
better/faster than yours, I could connect faster and things would display
faster even though your machine was 10 times faster than my machine. Even
that will change for site to site or Server to Server. The only thing you
can do about that is to get /buy more band width.
Locally your system may out perform my machine 10:1 if everything else was
equal.

H Brown

"Jeff" <> wrote in message
news:%...
>I increased the RAM on my Compaq Presario SR2002X from 512M to 2G (both old
> and new are the same speed, PC2-4200). Both the BIOS Setup and the System
> dialog in the Control Panel show that they are using the new memory. As
> expected, a variety of things run faster now. In particular, all those
> security dialogs that come up and dim the desktop whenever you start some
> system maintenance process. They used to be slow to appear, but now they
> pop up almost immediately. Some programs start faster now -- the MSDN
> library displays almost immediately now, and it used to take about 30
> seconds to initialize.
>
> The surprise is that some things run slower. One thing that is
> particularly
> noticeable often occurs when entering text into a web page input area.
> With
> each keystroke, I can see the caret moving across the white background,
> but
> no characters appear. Sometimes I'll type in five or six keystrokes
> before
> it gets around to painting the characters behind the cursor. Another
> occurs
> with crossword puzzles displayed in Flash objects, such as the one in the
> daily L.A. Times. For these crossword puzzles, first you have to poke a
> puzzle-selection button; then it pops up a dialog with a choice of
> "regular"
> or "master" skill level. The pop-up used to display instantly; now
> there's
> a delay of about three seconds.
>
> Why would some things run slower after an increase in RAM??
>
> Thanks,
> Jeff
>

The situation I described, typing text into a webpage input area, did not
involve any Internet activity. The page was already loaded, and I typed
some stuff into an input area. It did not trigger any other activity -- I
know this because I wrote the HTML and created the web form without any
on... clauses. After I finish entering text, the Enter key triggers
Internet navigation.

So, everything you said was irrelevant.

"H Brown" <> wrote in message
news:...
> When dealing with the internet the amount of RAM nor the speed of your
> system has anything to do with it. It all has to do with the speed of your
> connection.
> In other words if your machine was ten (10) times faster from a hardware
> stand point than my machine, if my connection to the internet was
> better/faster than yours, I could connect faster and things would display
> faster even though your machine was 10 times faster than my machine. Even
> that will change for site to site or Server to Server. The only thing you
> can do about that is to get /buy more band width.
> Locally your system may out perform my machine 10:1 if everything else was
> equal.
>
> H Brown
>
> "Jeff" <> wrote in message
> news:%...
>>I increased the RAM on my Compaq Presario SR2002X from 512M to 2G (both
>>old
>> and new are the same speed, PC2-4200). Both the BIOS Setup and the
>> System
>> dialog in the Control Panel show that they are using the new memory. As
>> expected, a variety of things run faster now. In particular, all those
>> security dialogs that come up and dim the desktop whenever you start some
>> system maintenance process. They used to be slow to appear, but now they
>> pop up almost immediately. Some programs start faster now -- the MSDN
>> library displays almost immediately now, and it used to take about 30
>> seconds to initialize.
>>
>> The surprise is that some things run slower. One thing that is
>> particularly
>> noticeable often occurs when entering text into a web page input area.
>> With
>> each keystroke, I can see the caret moving across the white background,
>> but
>> no characters appear. Sometimes I'll type in five or six keystrokes
>> before
>> it gets around to painting the characters behind the cursor. Another
>> occurs
>> with crossword puzzles displayed in Flash objects, such as the one in the
>> daily L.A. Times. For these crossword puzzles, first you have to poke a
>> puzzle-selection button; then it pops up a dialog with a choice of
>> "regular"
>> or "master" skill level. The pop-up used to display instantly; now
>> there's
>> a delay of about three seconds.
>>
>> Why would some things run slower after an increase in RAM??
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Jeff
>>
>

Well, not an easy one

The only thing I can think of is that it's a "Priority" thing.

Both the slow scenarios you describe involve something "Interacting"
while the faster scenario relates to loading a program rather than
running one. Maybe now there's extra RAM there's something in the
background (Disk Defrag or Indexing for example) that's trying to catch
up from before?

Jeff wrote:
> The situation I described, typing text into a webpage input area, did
> not involve any Internet activity. The page was already loaded, and I
> typed some stuff into an input area. It did not trigger any other
> activity -- I know this because I wrote the HTML and created the web
> form without any on... clauses. After I finish entering text, the Enter
> key triggers Internet navigation.
>
> So, everything you said was irrelevant.
>
> "H Brown" <> wrote in message
> news:...
>> When dealing with the internet the amount of RAM nor the speed of your
>> system has anything to do with it. It all has to do with the speed of
>> your connection.
>> In other words if your machine was ten (10) times faster from a
>> hardware stand point than my machine, if my connection to the internet
>> was better/faster than yours, I could connect faster and things would
>> display faster even though your machine was 10 times faster than my
>> machine. Even that will change for site to site or Server to Server.
>> The only thing you can do about that is to get /buy more band width.
>> Locally your system may out perform my machine 10:1 if everything else
>> was equal.
>>
>> H Brown
>>
>> "Jeff" <> wrote in message
>> news:%...
>>> I increased the RAM on my Compaq Presario SR2002X from 512M to 2G
>>> (both old
>>> and new are the same speed, PC2-4200). Both the BIOS Setup and the
>>> System
>>> dialog in the Control Panel show that they are using the new memory. As
>>> expected, a variety of things run faster now. In particular, all those
>>> security dialogs that come up and dim the desktop whenever you start
>>> some
>>> system maintenance process. They used to be slow to appear, but now
>>> they
>>> pop up almost immediately. Some programs start faster now -- the MSDN
>>> library displays almost immediately now, and it used to take about 30
>>> seconds to initialize.
>>>
>>> The surprise is that some things run slower. One thing that is
>>> particularly
>>> noticeable often occurs when entering text into a web page input
>>> area. With
>>> each keystroke, I can see the caret moving across the white
>>> background, but
>>> no characters appear. Sometimes I'll type in five or six keystrokes
>>> before
>>> it gets around to painting the characters behind the cursor. Another
>>> occurs
>>> with crossword puzzles displayed in Flash objects, such as the one in
>>> the
>>> daily L.A. Times. For these crossword puzzles, first you have to poke a
>>> puzzle-selection button; then it pops up a dialog with a choice of
>>> "regular"
>>> or "master" skill level. The pop-up used to display instantly; now
>>> there's
>>> a delay of about three seconds.
>>>
>>> Why would some things run slower after an increase in RAM??
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Jeff
>>>
>>
>