System feels sluggish - need more ram?

spiki

spiki

spiki

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18 Oct 2005
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Apologies if this is in the wrong forum although I think it fits here.

Over the last few weeks my system seems to be feel more sluggish than it used to.

This is especially noticeable when starting from a cold boot and exiting from BF3.

In game, the performance monitor on my Logitech Z10 speakers indicates ram usage at 94% and CPU at 65%. When I exit the game it takes a good minute or so for me to be able to do any other tasks such as open a new web page, document etc. The monitor states ram usage as 55%, CPU at 5%.

My system specs are in my sig but I thought my system was adequate for running BF3 on mostly high settings with the 560Ti 2gb model and as I said up to now, my PC has been running fine. Nevertheless, these stats suggest running out of ram.

Are there any tweaks I should consider or would it be advisable to invest in another 4gb of ram or could there be another cause?

Thanks.
 
Another 4gb of ram would help, and oc your cpu a bit more. A q9550 and p5qe is a very nice combination, with the right cooler you could easily hit 3.8ghz, 4 with a bit of tweaking.
 
Absolutely, the fact that it takes a minute after playing a game before becoming usable again is because Windows shifted loads of stuff onto the HD pagefile to make room for BF3. After you exit it has to move it all back into RAM again which is what causes the delay.

Increasing to a total of 8GB RAM will sort this out (for now at least!). The cold boot slowness really needs an SSD to sort out, although more RAM will help a little. It's this type of thing where an SSD makes a huge improvement.
 
Ok, sounds like good advice. Thanks for the replies.

Setter - any advice on how to OC? I bought this system pre-overclocked and haven't a clue where begin.
 
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I have been able to source another 4GB of Corsair ram exactly the same timings, voltage, version as what I am currently using.

In order to upgrade my RAM, do I just need to insert it into the two empty slots of my MB or do I need to make adjustments in the BIOS as well? This is with Vista 64 Bit.

Thanks
 
So my additional 4GB of ram arrived yesterday. Clicked it into place, system booted without a problem and fired up BF3. All that sluggishness after exiting game has gone. Still a wee bit slow to boot so SSD may well be next investment. Thanks again to all for the advice.
 
Glad to hear it. SSDs really do help if you have some spare money available. In my experience it's not so much the boot time from BIOS until the login screen that matters, it's the bit after entering your password. Prices seem to keep getting lower so it may be worth trying for 128GB Crucial (like I have) or something similar.
 
You will never ever feel as awesome as when you turn on the pc and boot from the ssd for the first time then double click a game lol. It's like butter.
 
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