I increased the RAM on my Compaq Presario SR2002X from 512M to 2G (both old
and new are the same speed, PC2-4200). Both the BIOS Setup and the System
dialog in the Control Panel show that they are using the new memory. As
expected, a variety of things run faster now. In particular, all those
security dialogs that come up and dim the desktop whenever you start some
system maintenance process. They used to be slow to appear, but now they
pop up almost immediately. Some programs start faster now -- the MSDN
library displays almost immediately now, and it used to take about 30
seconds to initialize.

The surprise is that some things run slower. One thing that is particularly
noticeable often occurs when entering text into a web page input area. With
each keystroke, I can see the caret moving across the white background, but
no characters appear. Sometimes I'll type in five or six keystrokes before
it gets around to painting the characters behind the cursor. Another occurs
with crossword puzzles displayed in Flash objects, such as the one in the
daily L.A. Times. For these crossword puzzles, first you have to poke a
puzzle-selection button; then it pops up a dialog with a choice of "regular"
or "master" skill level. The pop-up used to display instantly; now there's
a delay of about three seconds.

Why would some things run slower after an increase in RAM??

Thanks,
Jeff

When dealing with the internet the amount of RAM nor the speed of your
system has anything to do with it. It all has to do with the speed of your
connection.
In other words if your machine was ten (10) times faster from a hardware
stand point than my machine, if my connection to the internet was
better/faster than yours, I could connect faster and things would display
faster even though your machine was 10 times faster than my machine. Even
that will change for site to site or Server to Server. The only thing you
can do about that is to get /buy more band width.
Locally your system may out perform my machine 10:1 if everything else was
equal.

H Brown

"Jeff" wrote in message
...
I increased the RAM on my Compaq Presario SR2002X from 512M to 2G (both old
and new are the same speed, PC2-4200). Both the BIOS Setup and the System
dialog in the Control Panel show that they are using the new memory. As
expected, a variety of things run faster now. In particular, all those
security dialogs that come up and dim the desktop whenever you start some
system maintenance process. They used to be slow to appear, but now they
pop up almost immediately. Some programs start faster now -- the MSDN
library displays almost immediately now, and it used to take about 30
seconds to initialize.

The surprise is that some things run slower. One thing that is
particularly
noticeable often occurs when entering text into a web page input area.
With
each keystroke, I can see the caret moving across the white background,
but
no characters appear. Sometimes I'll type in five or six keystrokes
before
it gets around to painting the characters behind the cursor. Another
occurs
with crossword puzzles displayed in Flash objects, such as the one in the
daily L.A. Times. For these crossword puzzles, first you have to poke a
puzzle-selection button; then it pops up a dialog with a choice of
"regular"
or "master" skill level. The pop-up used to display instantly; now
there's
a delay of about three seconds.

Why would some things run slower after an increase in RAM??

Thanks,
Jeff

The situation I described, typing text into a webpage input area, did not
involve any Internet activity. The page was already loaded, and I typed
some stuff into an input area. It did not trigger any other activity -- I
know this because I wrote the HTML and created the web form without any
on... clauses. After I finish entering text, the Enter key triggers
Internet navigation.

So, everything you said was irrelevant.

"H Brown" wrote in message
...
When dealing with the internet the amount of RAM nor the speed of your
system has anything to do with it. It all has to do with the speed of your
connection.
In other words if your machine was ten (10) times faster from a hardware
stand point than my machine, if my connection to the internet was
better/faster than yours, I could connect faster and things would display
faster even though your machine was 10 times faster than my machine. Even
that will change for site to site or Server to Server. The only thing you
can do about that is to get /buy more band width.
Locally your system may out perform my machine 10:1 if everything else was
equal.

H Brown

"Jeff" wrote in message
...
I increased the RAM on my Compaq Presario SR2002X from 512M to 2G (both
old
and new are the same speed, PC2-4200). Both the BIOS Setup and the
System
dialog in the Control Panel show that they are using the new memory. As
expected, a variety of things run faster now. In particular, all those
security dialogs that come up and dim the desktop whenever you start some
system maintenance process. They used to be slow to appear, but now they
pop up almost immediately. Some programs start faster now -- the MSDN
library displays almost immediately now, and it used to take about 30
seconds to initialize.

The surprise is that some things run slower. One thing that is
particularly
noticeable often occurs when entering text into a web page input area.
With
each keystroke, I can see the caret moving across the white background,
but
no characters appear. Sometimes I'll type in five or six keystrokes
before
it gets around to painting the characters behind the cursor. Another
occurs
with crossword puzzles displayed in Flash objects, such as the one in the
daily L.A. Times. For these crossword puzzles, first you have to poke a
puzzle-selection button; then it pops up a dialog with a choice of
"regular"
or "master" skill level. The pop-up used to display instantly; now
there's
a delay of about three seconds.

Why would some things run slower after an increase in RAM??

Thanks,
Jeff

The surprise is that some things run slower. One thing that is
particularly
noticeable often occurs when entering text into a web page input area.
With
each keystroke, I can see the caret moving across the white background,
but
no characters appear. Sometimes I'll type in five or six keystrokes
before
it gets around to painting the characters behind the cursor. Another
occurs
with crossword puzzles displayed in Flash objects, such as the one in the
daily L.A. Times. For these crossword puzzles, first you have to poke a
puzzle-selection button; then it pops up a dialog with a choice of
"regular"
or "master" skill level. The pop-up used to display instantly; now
there's
a delay of about three seconds.

Why would some things run slower after an increase in RAM??

It's understandable after adding the ram to think it has something to do
with this behavior, but it seems unlikely. Try running the Windows
Experience Index again - are all the scores reasonable? Since you mentioned
"flash" do you have the latest version? Try the crossword puzzles in a
different browser to see if that makes a difference. Do you see the typing
slowdown in other applications or only the browser? If it's only in the
browser that would suggest a slow internet connection. You can run a
performance test on your internet connection at dslreports.com.

Well, not an easy one

The only thing I can think of is that it's a "Priority" thing.

Both the slow scenarios you describe involve something "Interacting"
while the faster scenario relates to loading a program rather than
running one. Maybe now there's extra RAM there's something in the
background (Disk Defrag or Indexing for example) that's trying to catch
up from before?

Jeff wrote:
The situation I described, typing text into a webpage input area, did
not involve any Internet activity. The page was already loaded, and I
typed some stuff into an input area. It did not trigger any other
activity -- I know this because I wrote the HTML and created the web
form without any on... clauses. After I finish entering text, the Enter
key triggers Internet navigation.

So, everything you said was irrelevant.

"H Brown" wrote in message
...
When dealing with the internet the amount of RAM nor the speed of your
system has anything to do with it. It all has to do with the speed of
your connection.
In other words if your machine was ten (10) times faster from a
hardware stand point than my machine, if my connection to the internet
was better/faster than yours, I could connect faster and things would
display faster even though your machine was 10 times faster than my
machine. Even that will change for site to site or Server to Server.
The only thing you can do about that is to get /buy more band width.
Locally your system may out perform my machine 10:1 if everything else
was equal.

H Brown

"Jeff" wrote in message
...
I increased the RAM on my Compaq Presario SR2002X from 512M to 2G
(both old
and new are the same speed, PC2-4200). Both the BIOS Setup and the
System
dialog in the Control Panel show that they are using the new memory. As
expected, a variety of things run faster now. In particular, all those
security dialogs that come up and dim the desktop whenever you start
some
system maintenance process. They used to be slow to appear, but now
they
pop up almost immediately. Some programs start faster now -- the MSDN
library displays almost immediately now, and it used to take about 30
seconds to initialize.

The surprise is that some things run slower. One thing that is
particularly
noticeable often occurs when entering text into a web page input
area. With
each keystroke, I can see the caret moving across the white
background, but
no characters appear. Sometimes I'll type in five or six keystrokes
before
it gets around to painting the characters behind the cursor. Another
occurs
with crossword puzzles displayed in Flash objects, such as the one in
the
daily L.A. Times. For these crossword puzzles, first you have to poke a
puzzle-selection button; then it pops up a dialog with a choice of
"regular"
or "master" skill level. The pop-up used to display instantly; now
there's
a delay of about three seconds.

Why would some things run slower after an increase in RAM??

Thanks,
Jeff