Replacement RAM
 

My PC is very good but the RAM "fills up" all the time (with Firefox/Chromium/Thunderbird) and I have tried many things to get it under control or figure it out but now I have decided the that best/easiest solution would be just to upgrade from 4G to 8G RAM.

If I have understood the below data correctly, then I have two slots on my mobo and they are both now holding a 2G chip each. Thus I must buy two fresh 4G chips and replace them. I guess then I throw the 2G's out? Or save them for a rainy day (yeah, right).

If that is correct, then can anyone advice precisely what I should buy? I think I want 64bit DIMM 4G at least 1333MHz, but I really don't know.

Here is what I see in my CLI:

What are you exactly saying by "filling up?" I ask this because if you are using your "free" command, remember that you have to account for your buffers and cached memory. (If this is what you are implying)

There is a 3 page post here http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...rmance-917353/ about some of my RAM problems. In short, when the system uses up 90% of the physical RAM, the machine crawls to almost a halt. I regularly restart Firefox/Chromium/Thunderbird when conky shows the usage is high. I can sometimes tell b/c the machine just slows down.

I have tried many things, but I think for $100 this will be the best solution. :)

Ahh, didn't see that post, thanks!

I didn't fully read through every little detail in the thread yet, but I would like to ask one question - If you ran any direct RAM/memory tests, did you get any sort of bad output?

Ninja edit: After soaking in some more of the details, it definitely sounds like an odd quirky issue. Have you fully swapped out the memory with completely new modules?

> After soaking in some more of the details, it definitely sounds like an odd quirky issue.

Good to hear I'm not the only one who thinks it's odd.

> Have you fully swapped out the memory with completely new modules?

You mean did I replace the RAM chips? No.

But I would like to now with bigger, fatter, nastier ones. :)

Replacement RAM
 

Are you running preload? Preload is an adaptive readahead daemon that preloads some libraries to ram. Linux/Unix uses ram differently than "other operating systems" so that a heavy ram load does not necessarily mean a slow box.

Well I would at least acquire a different set of RAM chips and swap them, and see if the issue persists or not. Say for ex, the problem DOES persist after swapping, then it could even stem down to a motherboard issue (north bridge, MMC, etc). Hopefully, it is nothing this major, and comes down to either weird/bad memory, software/kernel, etc :/

replacing the ram is a good idea, though before buying bigger ram, i would look into the make/model of motherboard to see what the max amount of ram supported IS, because if you buy 8 and your machine only supports 4 max it's never gonna work.

This is my mobo:

and I do believe that this link to intel.com indicates "Support for up to 8 GB of system memory" so we're OK.

So back to my original question:

>precisely what I should buy? I think I want 64bit DIMM 4G at least 1333MHz, but I really don't know.

Seems from that link actually that it only runs up to 1333 MHz so getting faster won't help. So I need two 240 pin DDR3 SDRAM DIMM 1333MHz 4 GB modules right? Price in the USA online appears to be around $50. I will buy here in Israel and I see on this Israeli comparison shopping site that prices are around $50 also, which is around 180 NIS today.

So just clarify that I've got it right and I will do it.

Thanks!

Yup! According to the spec sheet, that's the fastest you can go, and the maximum amount of supported RAM.