If you’re looking to add extra RAM (random access memory) to your computer or laptop, you’re most likely trying to make your computer faster and more powerful.
By adding more RAM to your computer, not only will your computer run much faster, but you’ll also be able to run tons of programs at once without your system slowing down or crashing.
Before you can upgrade the RAM, you’ll need to know exactly how much RAM your system can handle.
Every computer will have a different RAM setup as well as a different maximum RAM limit.
Some computer setups have two RAM slots and others may have four RAM slots.
The Crucial memory scan is one of the best free resources to use to help you upgrade RAM on your computer yourself.
Crucial memory is a great computer memory company that provides RAM upgrades for your computer. Running the Crucial memory scan will let you know right away how many RAM slots your system has, how much RAM your system currently has, and exactly how much extra RAM you can add to your computer. One of the most significant factors determining how much RAM your system can support depends on whether your system type is 32-bit or 64-bit. 32-bit system types are generally limited to 4GB of RAM as opposed to 64-bit system types which can handle a lot more RAM.
I ran the Crucial memory scan on my laptop and found out it has two RAM slots and a maximum RAM limit of 2GB (see image below). My RAM is already maxed out since my system type is 32-bit, which doesn’t allow much room for extra RAM.
After you find out your system RAM setup you can properly figure out how to upgrade RAM in your system. If your system has four RAM slots and a maximum of 8GB of RAM, you can get either two 4GB RAM slots leaving the other two slots empty or four 2GB RAM slots.
If your system is already at the maximum RAM limit or if you’d like to add more RAM to your computer then what your system can currently support, you can upgrade your operating system to a 64-bit type. All operating system editions are available as either a 32-bit or 64-bit system type.
If you’re looking to add the most RAM possible, a 64-bit operating system is definitely the way to go.
You can also upgrade your hard drive as the Crucial memory scan may recommend some solid state drives, although upgrading the hard drive is a much more difficult and time consuming hardware replacement. If your computer has a hard disk drive you may want to upgrade to a solid state drive (SSD). Solid state drives are much faster compared to hard disk drives as they are non-moving memory and completely eliminate file fragmenting as data allowing data to be stored all in one easy to access place.