new to vista - ready boost?

Discussion:

(too old to reply)

tigertim71

2009-03-17 23:38:02 UTC

Hi

I installed Vista after my XP became corrupt (long story...)

Have noticed that it's using 510-560 MB RAM at idle! I have a total o
1024 RAM. If I get a 4GB ready boost compatible USB/flash card will i
make a difference or is it a waste of money and only to be used if Vist
is chewing up more than 1024 MB

Thanks

--
tigertim71

Rick Rogers

2009-03-18 00:35:35 UTC

Permalink

Hi,

It can help as it is not treated as ram, it's space allocated for superfetch
which preloads frequently used data for faster acceess. With a large amount
of installed ram, prefetch will store it there, but with small amounts it
will use a readyboost device if available. While the throughput is slower
than than a hdd, the indexing and reduced seek time actually make retrieval
faster from a readyboost device.
--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

Hi,
I installed Vista after my XP became corrupt (long story...).
Have noticed that it's using 510-560 MB RAM at idle! I have a total of
1024 RAM. If I get a 4GB ready boost compatible USB/flash card will it
make a difference or is it a waste of money and only to be used if Vista
is chewing up more than 1024 MB?
Thanks.
--
tigertim71

brummyfan

2009-03-18 18:07:56 UTC

Permalink

I would suggest you to upgrade your memory from 1GB to at least 2G
rather than buying a 4GB USB/Flash card. I tried Readyboost with m
spare 1GB USB stick and noticed a slight performance increase but when
upgraded my memory the laptop performs well above my expectation

--
brummyfan

tigertim71

2009-03-18 18:11:50 UTC

Permalink

Hi- Unfortunately, the RAM on my pc is limited to 1GB, so I would hav
to know if ready boost is worth it...

--
tigertim71

Dave Warren

2009-03-19 19:40:38 UTC

Permalink

Hi- Unfortunately, the RAM on my pc is limited to 1GB, so I would have
to know if ready boost is worth it....

Limited to 1GB? That sounds unfortunate.

The short answer is that with only 1GB of RAM, you'll probably see a
difference from ReadyBoost, although it won't be anywhere near as
significant as a bit of extra RAM.

GrahamH

2009-03-19 17:36:44 UTC

Permalink

Hi,
Dont bother with ready boost, your 1Gb ram is inadequate for Vista.
Double it to 2Gb that is a minimum you should aim at.
If you want above 4Gb however, you will need a 64bit o/s.
Regards,
Graham...

MilesAhead

2009-03-19 23:24:20 UTC

Permalink

Post by tigertim71
Hi
I installed Vista after my XP became corrupt (long story...)
Have noticed that it's using 510-560 MB RAM at idle! I have a total o
1024 RAM. If I get a 4GB ready boost compatible USB/flash card will i
make a difference or is it a waste of money and only to be used if Vist
is chewing up more than 1024 MB
Thanks

If your ram is limited to 1 GB see if you can put W7 beta on. I hav
Pentium 4 with 1 GB ram and W7 beta ran quite well on it(no Aero jus
basic theme but it was plenty snappy.) If you can then at least you ca
use the machine until the beta deadline. Then buy something with mor
capacity

--
MilesAhea

"I don't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member.
- Groucho Marx

chayi

2009-03-22 12:19:16 UTC

Permalink

Is the 1gb limit due to your BIOS? what is the make/model of the pc/lpt a
bios upgrade may solve this issue, most bios upgrade can be done with a GUI
installer so its not hard to do.

you can use ready boost it will help a bit but wont be like having a memory
upgrade, but vista will work fine, just turn off the the extra's for best
performance, the Windows7 beta will (as far as i know) lockout after Aug1st
so as great as win7 is best to stick with vista on your current setup, make
sure if you go for ready boost the specs of the usb flash drive are met, i.e
USB 2 (does your mainboard support this) The device must be capable of 2.5
MB/s read speeds for 4 KB random reads spread uniformly across the entire
device and 1.75 MB/s write speeds for 512 KB random writes spread uniformly
across the device.

go for a 2gb memory stick or 4gb (only 3gb will be recomended by MS) and see
how it goes, its worth the small cost involved,

let us know how it goes.

If your ram is limited to 1 GB see if you can put W7 beta on. I have
Pentium 4 with 1 GB ram and W7 beta ran quite well on it(no Aero just
basic theme but it was plenty snappy.) If you can then at least you can
use the machine until the beta deadline. Then buy something with more
capacity.
--
MilesAhead
"I don't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member."
- Groucho Marx