We’re all looking to defy the credit crunch and expensive electronics devices will probably be the first thing to go by the wayside.  But what happens when you’re staying in more, probably using your PC, but it’s slowing down and becoming a dog to use.

In the Downloads section you’ll find a link to CCleaner which is a free tool that will clean up temporary and unwanted files that are clogging up your PC.  That’s always the first thing to try, and I’ll be publishing some more software picks here in the coming weeks to help with that.  If you find yourself thinking you might need to buy a new PC though, there might be a simpler solution.

Recently I helped two friends significantly boost the performance of their PCs for as little as £30.  You can do this by adding more memory (seen above).  There will be one or two mounted vertically in your PC just behind the DVD drive.

Replacing memory cards 101 – These cards run on tiny voltages so a good static blast from your hand could be enough to render one unusable.  Before touching them always do the following.

1. Touch your hand to the power supply inside your PC.  You’ll normally find it at the back top of the case, it’s what the big power lead plugs into.
2. Unplug the power lead from the back of the machine.

This will earth you and dissipate any static shock.  You should still be careful though if you’re on something like a nylon carpet.

What type of memory do you have? There will usually be a sticker (seen above) on the card(s) and you should be able to write down what’s written on it without removing them.  This will tell you what type of memory you have and how much of it there is.

You could have one of the following types.  SD Ram, DDR, DDR2 or DDR3.  It will also tell you how much memory is on each card.  128Mb (mega-byte), 256Mb, 512Mb, 1Gb (giga-byte) etc.  To run a PC properly you should have between 512Mb and 1Gb for Windows XP and 2Gb to 3Gb for Windows Vista (two 512Mb cards will give you 1Gb).  At the time of writing Windows 7 should be happy with anything that runs Vista.  Finally it will tell you the speed in MHz (megahertz) 133, 266, 333, 400, 533, 1066, 1333, 1600 and so on.  To help with this there might be a code you can match up, for example PC2100 or PC2700 etc.

These are the three pieces of information you need to buy more compatible memory for your system.  The next thing to check is how much memory you have and if you have any spare slots.  If you don’t have any spare memory slots (they’ll come in pairs of two) then you’ll have to replace at least one of the cards.  If you do then you should be able to add more memory to what you’ve got.  Different types of memory cards don’t always like working with each other though so possibly aiming to replace all your memory is a safer bet but we’ll come to this in a minute.

Installing your new memory. This is easy because memory cards have little lugs on them that will mean they can only go in one way.  Make sure they’re firmly clipped in top and bottom and switch your machine on.  If at this point it goes BEEP, BEEP, BEEP then it’s not happy about something and you can turn it off by pressing and holding the power button for four seconds.  Try reseating the cards or, if you’ve put a new card in with an old one, try removing the old one.  Remember what I said about discharging any static electricity first though.

So what will this do for me? I upgraded a friend’s PC a while back from 256Mb of memory to 1Gb and the boot time dropped from 3½ minutes to 50 seconds.  I helped another friend upgrade her memory from 128Mb to 768Mb and her performance increased five fold.  Adding more memory is the quickest, easiest and cheapest way to upgrade a PC and it’s well worth the effort.

Why does this happen? Windows, whatever version you use, is quite big and sits on the hard drive when you’re not using it.  But access to the hard drive is slow as opposed to memory access which is significantly faster.  Windows and your programs load themselves into memory  for quick and easy access.  If you don’t have enough memory then they have to be read from the hard drive instead which will take far longer.

Adding more memory can add a couple of years to the life of a PC and save hundreds of pounds.  I’ll write more money-saving tips here soon.

Since writing this article the price of memory has dropped even further.  1Gb of DDR2 memory can be had for only £15.  If you find you have problems starting your machine, or if it even slows down, try swapping the cards over in the memory slots.  This usually fixes things.