Red dwarves, robots and a speedier computer

Kryten is a Series 4000 mechanoid, the neurotic robotic servant appearing in cult British sitcom Red Dwarf. So what's he got to do with your computer, apart from the somewhat stereotypical link between geeks and science fiction? Well, the Kryten character was played (in all but the first appearance) by the actor Robert Llewellyn. An actor who has been hired by computer upgrade outfit Crucial.com to present an information video encouraging people, surprise surprise, to upgrade their laptop memory rather than throw it away just because it's running slowly or freezing regularly.

Crucial has undertaken research recently which shows that an estimated 5,528 tonnes of computer scrap is produced in the UK every year from desktop and laptop computers alone. That's the equivalent of 790 double-decker London buses, for example, or more than 580 million British pound coins. Yet 73% of those surveyed admitted they had thrown out a computer, and 38% said they did so as they wanted a device that booted faster, ran faster and could handle multiple simultaneous tasks. This 'scrap' correlation is another link to Llewellyn, interestingly, as he also hosted the popular UK cult TV game show 'Scrapheap Challenge'.

"I'm no stranger to the amount of useful items we throw out in the UK; I've seen all sorts of interesting things that people discard as rubbish" Llewellyn says, adding "although people like me can usually find a use for this so called ‘waste,' it would be much simpler and cost-effective if we could think more carefully about how to improve the lifespan of the products we use at home."

Amen to that. Yet for some reason this logic does not seem to apply to laptops and PCs. Most probably because normal folk, unlike those of us who frequent IT support forums such as DaniWeb, think that a memory upgrade is the preserve of Bill Gates and his mates. Anything that can dispel this myth, and save the planet from unnecessary computing waste pollution, has to be a good thing. Which is why we recommend pointing any non-tech relatives and friends at this video featuring Robert Llewellyn, and if they have any problems in performing an upgrade, or their computer is still running slowly afterwards, introducing them to the PC Hardware forums here at DaniWeb where a community of helpful folk are on hand to guide and advise.

Yet 73% of those surveyed admitted they had thrown out a computer, and 38% said they did so as they wanted a device that booted faster, ran faster and could handle multiple simultaneous tasks. This 'scrap' correlation is another link to Llewellyn, interestingly, as he also hosted the popular UK cult TV game show 'Scrapheap Challenge'.

I did in the past I always thought buying RAM will help increase the speed of the OS system.

[rubberman]

Disc space, the final frontier! RAM is just an aspect of that... RAM is only an issue if you run out of it and the system has to use virtual RAM (swap space) which, as it resides on disc, is relatively sloooooowwww... If you can monitor your system resource usage and see that you are not using swap space, then more RAM will not speed things up. If it is, then adding more RAM is a wise (and relatively inexpensive) choice.

FWIW, both my laptop and workstation have 8GB of RAM, and I run virtual machines on both, without hitting the swap space. Occasionally I would like more RAM, so I can run multiple virtual machines at one time, but that is a "nice-to-have" option, not a requirement... :-)

[ageshyaw]

Most probably because normal folk, unlike those of us who frequent IT support forums such as DaniWeb, think that a memory upgrade is the preserve of Bill Gates and his mates.

[rubberman]

Personally, I could use a memory upgrade - I keep forgetting stuff! :-)

[happygeek]

Who are you again? ;)

[sammy.juqwes]

pect of that... RAM is only an issue if you run out of it and the system has to use virtual RAM (swap space) which, as it resides on disc, is relatively sloooooowwww... If you can monitor your system resource usage and see that you are not using swap space, then more RAM

[tigerbright]

Disk drive free space below a nominal 20% can reduce processing performance, and below 5% very tedious.
As for ram memory usage I suggest, if supported, rubber ducky real time system monitor
Easy to detemine ram usage and only takes up a very small area of the desktop space
Is a moving graphical icon interface for easy and quick useful evaluations
ram usage , page file usage , disk activity, cpu activity, network traffic

[JorgeM]

Think about an assembly line... its going to produce widgets as fast as its slowest component. Same goes with a computer. Its going to be limited by the slower components. While RAM is important for a system, people make assumptions that they need to purchase a system with the fastest CPU or lots of RAM. Actually, to get the most for your money, one should focus on the slower components of the system, such as your secondary storage (hard drives).

Including faster hard drives with more cache ability, or newer SSD drives, or RAID arrays, will dramatatically improve the performance of a computer system.

Also, over time, data becomes fragemented on a drive, so its important to defrag your drives accordindly. Its no wonder why a computer system seems "faster" after you wipe the drive and re-install a fresh clean copy of the OS....

[Esstaseng]

Computer hardware nowdays very unique

[dom246]

You can really speed up an old, slow machine with a simple memory upgrade. Taking this one step further, I have found an SSD to use for the OS drive is quite an upgrade as well. Between these 2 upgrades, you could get qu

[jackalex545]

As for ram memory usage I suggest yet 73% of those surveyed admitted they had thrown out a computer and 38% said they did so as they wanted a device that booted faster ran faster and could handle multiple simultaneous tasks..

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