Having too much of a good thing .......................................................
Can you have too much memory? Ah, another one of those trick questions.
Here are some untricky answers:In general, more memory is better than less memory.The operating
system loads faster, applications run better, and you find it easier to
multitask(have several programs open and available at the same time).
Almost every laptop limits the amount of memory with which it can
work.In most cases, you can install more memory than the system will
recognize, but the laptop only recognizes and makes use of RAM up to
its limit. In other words, if the machine has a limit of 512MB and you
install 640MB, the computer should still perform properly but not make
use of memory locations above 512MB. (A few machines, though, may
completely refuse to work or may crash or act unpredictably if the moth-
erboard finds more RAM than it expects. Check with the maker of your
machine for advice.)Memory requires electrical current to initialize; RAM contents must be
regularly refreshed. This keeps data in place and accessible. The more
memory you have, the higher the demand on your laptop’s battery. I’m
not talking huge amounts here; the hard drive, CD or DVD, and the LCD
screen draw much more power than memory. But there is a cost to the
use of RAM.Chapter 6: Brain Matters: Memory, Microprocessors, and BIOS 83
Multitasking, multiprocessing, and multimedia
Laptops don’t really run more than one program
at a time. Instead, the microprocessor is capa-
ble of rapidly switching its attention from one
application to another, giving the illusion that
more than one program is churning away at the
same moment.
Remember, too, that many programs don’t
require the active attention of the microproces-
sor all the time. For example, a word processor
spends most of its time just sitting there on your
screen, dumbly displaying whatever you have
most recently written or loaded from the hard
drive.Programs more demanding of the processor
include multimedia — display of video from
DVDs or the Internet, graphics manipulation
applications, and graphics-intensive games. If
you have more than one of these programs open
at a time, you may see an occasional slowdown
or pause in activity as the microprocessor shifts
its attention from one to the other.