What's wrong with my RAM?

Question

My entire system is four years old and it's been doing okay for 3.5 of those, but recently it just slows everything down. Even after a clean reformat and everything, the computer still needs like 5 seconds to open up a right click menu.

The original RAM that I had was 512, and with it, when I just turn the computer on(idle), I have maybe 300-350 MB available (Explorer, Anti Virus, Firewall etc take up the rest). Recently, I added a new 512 module, and now when it's idle it has about 500 MB available.

All the applications just seem to take up more RAM the more RAM there is available. So, is the problem in the RAM or something else? How could it be solved?

Answer 1

One way to test if your RAM has any corrupt sectors and may be causing slow performance is to get a free program called Memtest.



Boot your computer from the Memtest CD and let it run for a while - if there are errors there are bad sectors of your RAM and will need replacing.

Answer 2

your problem is most likely the RAM or your COMPUTER. you should take your whole comp. to a repair worker so he/she can look at it and tell whats wrong with it.

Answer 3

Maybe a defected HDD or corrupted .

Answer 4

File system cache will use any and all memory that's available.