Thanks for the Memory
If Your Computer Slows to a Standstill,
More RAM May Be the Answer
March 3, 2006
The shop was hidden in the back of the mall, away from all the flashy outlets selling spanking new laptops, projectors and handheld gizmos. And the most glamorous thing going on inside was a woman from a phone-cleaning service adding perfumed pads to the shop's solitary handset. But for me, it was a glimpse of heaven (the shop, not the Perfumed Pad Lady). Somewhere amid the glass cabinets stocked to the gills with identical looking blister packs were two slices of silicon that would, I hoped, solve all my computer problems -- for less than $100.
My laptop had been playing up for months. It wouldn't exactly stop midflight, but it would go so slowly sometimes that I would either sink two cups of coffee waiting for it to catch up with me, or else restart it and sink four cups of coffee waiting for it to reload. And we aren't talking rubbish here: A classy laptop with a fancy chip, a decent-size hard drive and what I always thought was more than enough memory for my needs -- 512 megabytes. But this last bit was where I was wrong. That is why I was lucky I met The RAM Dude.
Now first off, just in case you don't know, memory -- Random Access Memory, or RAM -- isn't the same as your hard drive. Your hard drive, measured these days in 10s of gigabytes, sometimes 100s if you're a serious hoarder, is where you store your data. It's like a big cupboard. RAM, on the other hand, is where your computer puts stuff you're actually working with. It's like a sideboard in the kitchen, where you chop, pound and season. The heart of the computer, the Central Processing Unit, or CPU, is where the processing gets done. That, as you might have guessed, is the stove. No cooks worth their salt would start cooking without getting everything they are likely to need out of the cupboard and onto the sideboard. Your computer is the same. It will load programs and documents into memory when you open them, so that when you ask it to crunch some numbers, play a music file, or edit a picture, it can do it without having to run back to the cupboard all the time.
So memory is important. If you don't have enough, your computer has to make it up, creating what's called virtual memory by swapping bits of data between your memory and your hard drive. As you can imagine, delays start to occur. So it's a simple equation: The more memory you have, the smoother your computer will run.
Of course there are other factors, too. If your computer chip -- the wafer that includes the CPU -- is slow, your computer will be, too. How much space you have on your hard drive is also important. If it's crammed full of data, the computer has a hard time finding what it needs, further slowing things down. But while everyone tends to focus on the speed of your chip and the size of your hard drive, not many people focus on adding RAM.
That is why I found myself in an unglamorous shop at the unglamorous end of a mall, talking RAM with the shop's owner, the self-styled RAM Dude. Well, actually, I didn't, because he wasn't there. But we talked over the phone and by instant messaging, and The RAM Dude, actually a very businesslike local agent for U.S.-based Corsair Memory Inc. named Winston Setiawan, explained to me some of the ups and downs of owning RAM.
The bottom line is that computing ain't what it used to be. A few years ago, Mr. Setiawan says, the average user would have a word processor running, and perhaps Microsoft Outlook. Now, he points out, that user would also keep three or four browser windows open and play MP3 music files. "That," Mr. Setiawan says, "is going to need a lot of RAM -- if he wants things to run smoothly." If you also throw in, as in my case, Google Desktop Search and free Internet telephony software like Skype, it's no wonder my 512-megabyte memory was creaking.
So what is enough? I polled a few experts on the matter, and, like experts everywhere, they didn't agree. But there seems to be consensus that if your computer comes with only 256 megabytes of RAM, it isn't enough. It's a bit like buying a nice new car and then putting old, bald tires on the wheels instead of new ones. Melissa J. Perenson, senior associate editor at PC World magazine in the U.S., sums it up when she says that 512 megabytes is the bare minimum. Her magazine recommends one gigabyte for starters. So that's what I've got.
And this is hardly going to break the bank. True, if you buy your memory from the manufacturer of your computer, you may balk at the price tag. But don't be put off by that. Lenovo (the owner of what used to be IBM's Personal Computing Division), for example, tried to charge me $133 for 512 megabytes of RAM, whereas I got the same thing -- minus the IBM/Lenovo sticker -- for $49 from The Ram Dude. Just make sure you buy the right RAM for your machine -- check
www.crucial.com, the Web site of Crucial Technology, the consumer division of U.S. RAM manufacturer Micron Technology Inc., for details of what your computer needs.
One final word. Mr. Setiawan reckons you'll get a 10% to 20% increase in speed, as the computer doesn't need to keep juggling data between disk and memory (cupboard and sideboard in our analogy). That's quite a significant improvement, but don't expect miracles. As Scott Testa, co-founder of software and Web-based consulting company Mindbridge Inc., puts it: "It simply enhances performance and saves time."
Me? I'm now off coffee altogether and my computer responds with alacrity to more or less whatever I throw at it. Now, all I worry about is replacing the perfumed pads on my telephone.
电脑速度慢？加RAM！
这家店铺藏在商场一处不起眼的角落，远离那些灯火辉煌的店铺──那里出售全新的笔记本电脑、放映机和手提电子设备。小店里最迷人的风景就是一个电话清洁服务公司的女士，她在为电话听筒贴香味贴──小店中只有一部电话。不过在我看来，这里就是天堂（我在说商店，可不是那位香味贴女士）。
在柜台中间，有两个一模一样的泡沫塑料包装，我希望里面的两片硅片能够解决我的所有问题──价格不要超过100美元。
我的笔记本电脑已经让我烦了好几个月。它倒不会中途死机，只是有时运行速度非常慢，我只能喝两杯咖啡耐心等著它反应过来，或者重新启动，不过这要让我等上喝四杯咖啡的时间。我的电脑可不是淘汰货：它质量上乘，芯片处理能力强大，硬盘空间很大，我以为这么大的内存足够了──512M。不过这最后一点我想错了。这也正是为什么说遇见RAM小子是我的幸运了。
首先，复习一下电脑知识：内存──随机存储器，即RAM──和硬盘不同。硬盘是存储数据的地方：如今的硬盘基本在10G以上，如果你喜欢存储东西，可以买到100G的硬盘。RAM则是电脑存储随机文件的地方，它就像是厨房里的操作台，你在上面切菜、剁菜、调味。电脑的心脏──中央处理器即CPU是加工的地方。你可能已经猜到了，CPU相当于炉子。有经验的厨师会把所有材料从橱柜里取出来、在操作台上准备好，然后开始烹饪。你的电脑也如是。它会将程序和文件载入内存，这样当你做运算、播放音乐或者编辑图片时，电脑就不必一次次回到橱柜取东西了。
因此内存很重要。如果你的存储空间不够，电脑就必须帮忙，调用硬盘空间当作内存使用，于是产生了所谓的“虚拟内存”。因此可以想见，延迟开始出现了。这是个简单的关系：内存越大，电脑运行速度越快。
当然其他因素也很重要。如果你的电脑芯片──包括CPU在内──处理速度很慢，那么电脑也会很慢。硬盘空间大小也很重要。如果硬盘被塞满了数据，电脑就不容易找到需要的东西，这也会降低运行速度。不过虽然人们对芯片速度和硬盘空间很在意，但对增加RAM却重视不够。
这也就是为什么这家不起眼的店铺会藏在商场一个不起眼的角落里。我和店铺的主人──一个自封为“RAM小子”的家伙进行了交谈。实际上，我并没有和他交谈，因为他不在店里。我们只是通过电话和即时讯息交流，RAM小子向我解释了拥有RAM的一些好处和缺点。其实他是美国Corsair Memory Inc.的本地代理商，名叫温斯顿?塞蒂亚万(Winston Setiawan)。
关键是人们使用电脑的方式和以往不同了。几年前，塞蒂亚万说，一般用户只会打开Word软件，可能还有Microsoft Outlook。而现在，用户会开三、四个窗口，并播放MP3音乐文件。塞蒂亚万说，“这需要很大的RAM──如果他希望电脑运行顺利的话。”如果你──像我一样，还打开了Google的桌面搜索和Skype等免费的网络电话软件，那么512M的内存不够也就不足为奇了。
那么多少内存才足够呢？我询问了几位这方面的专家，像所有专家一样，他们的意见并不统一。不过他们似乎在一点上达成了一致：只有256M的RAM是不够的。这就像是买来一辆漂亮的新车，却给它安上了破旧的轮胎。美国PC World magazine高级副编辑梅利莎?佩雷森(Melissa J. Perenson)总结说512M是底线。她的杂志建议初学者使用1G的RAM。我就买1G的RAM。
你不会为买这东西搞得捉襟见肘。如果从电脑生产商那里购买内存，你确实有可能因高昂的价格而望洋兴叹。不过不要因此畏缩：联想(Lenovo)（拥有前IBM个人电脑业务）对512MB的RAM要价133美元，而我从RAM小子那儿用49美元就买到了同样的东西──除了没有贴上IBM/联想的商标。要注意一定为你的电脑买个合适的RAM──可以在
www.crucial.com上找到具体指导，它是美国RAM制造商美光科技公司(Micron Technology Inc.)消费者业务Crucial Technology的网站。
最后我要说的是，塞蒂亚万先生估计电脑运行速度将因此提高10%至20%，因为它不必在硬盘和内存间转换数据了（我们打的比方是橱柜和操作台）。这可是不小的变化，不过不要期待奇迹发生。正如软件及网络咨询公司Mindbridge Inc.的共同创始人斯科特?特斯塔(Scott Testa)所说，“它只是提高了电脑的性能、节省了时间。”
我吗？现在我根本不必喝咖啡了，不论发出什么指令，我的电脑都能迅速应对。我现在担心的只是更换电话上的香味贴。
