How can my friend get more memory on her desk top?

One can buy additional RAM if the computer has room to add it. She should take it to where she bought it, and ask for it to have RAM added.

Does she live near a Best Buy? One can get 4 gig of RAM for $30.

Agree with @zenvelo I went from 2 gig to 8 gig cost me less than $75 for memory and $50 install and check-up at local computer shop.

I told her. Thanks guys.

It’s so easy to take the ram stick out, take it in and have them get you either another if there are two slots or one with 8 gig if there is only one, then put it back in. My 4 year old niece could do it.

Everything is easy if you know how to do it.

This really is easy though. Like putting an sd card in your phone easy.

We once had to get a new CD player for the computer. I watched the tech take the old out and put the new in. It’s really easy too.

Well RAM really is easy to install. RAM sticks go into little slots on the computer’s motherboard. It’s fairly “idiot proof”, as the sticks won’t go where they don’t belong, and the only thing that will fit in the RAM slot is a RAM stick.

Most of the time it’s just a matter of the existing memory getting all gunked up with extraneous crap that sneak in on your page openings and downloads over time, like junk files, cookies, bad shortcuts, adware, malware, and plugins & toolbars that you never use. I gave up on MicroSoft years ago, so I’m unsure if they offer a good, free disc and registry cleaner app. However, I do use their OS’s and Chrome browser.

I use—and highly recommend—a free product called IObit Advanced SystemCare that I downloaded from CNet.com. It is very easy to use. With one click of the mouse, it will clean out all the crap listed above, clean and defrag your registries, thereby freeing up memory and speeding up your computer.

There is also IObit Uninstaller available for free that not only will uninstall unwanted programs, but clean out all the little shit hidden in the disk and registries other uninstallers leave behind. IObit produces great products and CNet is a most trustworthy site for downloading.

If there is still a need for memory after doing all the above, then it may be time to increase yoour RAM capacity. Increasing RAM capacity isn’t as problematic as it used to be. Most of the time you don’t require an added slot to do this. You simply replace the old chip with a new one with greater memory capacity.

In other words, in the old days, if your existing chip had a 2GB capacity, you would add another chip in the empty slot next to it. Nowadays, you replace the original chip with a chip of greater capacity. It’s a very simple snap-out/snap in operation – no soldering.

This is how you do it at home. I’m writing this in high detail in case your friend has never before removed her computer manifold and done any repairs. So, skip the parts you already know.

Somewhere, on the outside of the computer is a plate or sticker with the make and model of the computer. You can also find this information in your computer as well by opening the Control Panel, click Administrative Tools, click System Information and voilah, there will be a list describing the make and model and product ID number of your computer (as well as the product ID number and the make, version and product ID of every bit of software and hardware that is inside your computer). Use this information when ordering your RAM chip from a reputable dealer online or otherwise.

If this is the first time you’ve ever taken a look at the guts of your computer, I highly recommend Googling “YouTube, Make, Model, Model Number of your computer, RAM chip replacement”, and there will more than likely be a vid to walk you through the process. Study that video.

When your chip arrives, open the package and take a good look at it. Make sure the contacts are not damaged or dirty. Unplug your computer. Open the computer by removing a few screws with one of those eyeglass screwdriver sets you get at the drug store for about a buck. Identify the coresponding RAM chip on the motherboard. They will look exactly alike if they sent you the right chip. Using your finger nail, gently pry out the old chip, then line up the new one with the contacts and snap it in. After making sure nothing is touch the motherboard, turn on your computer and open a couple of apps. Go on the net and open a page. If all is copacetic, shut her down, replace the manifold and you’re ready to go.

You just saved yourself between 50 and 150 bucks. If you are female, maybe even more.
You have just taken another important step on the road to self-sufficiency and you deserve a cookie or something.

Pie, I think, is the traditional reward. Cherry Pie, if this was your first time.

@Espiritus_Corvus That’s what I told her as well. Thanks for the link! I’ll send it to her and keep one for myself.
Merry Christmas!

@Espiritus_Corvus Can I run it while I’m on the computer or would it be best to do it over night?

Run the Advanced SystemCare? You can run it while surfing the net in text, like Fluthering, but video can get kind of choppy. When the progrem gets to the Spyware and Privacy scans, it will ask if it is alright to close your browser. A little ATTENTION! notice will rise out of the bottom right of your screen, no matter what screen you’re in. If you click it, it will shut down whatever you’re doing on the net. You can ignore it, but if you do, it will skip the Spyware scan.

The nice thing is, if you let the program close the browser, you can recover all the tabs you had open after the scan is over. If you close it yourself, this might not happen. I sometimes have 30 or 40 tabs open, so I let the program close my browser by clicking the ATTENTION notice. And then I can recover them when the scan is over by just clicking the Recovery button that appears in the top right screen when I open to my homepage. I’ve never had any problems during a scan, except the choppy video while it’s running.

A full scan usually doesn’t take more than 4 or 5 minutes, but the first run can be a long one, because your computer might be really dirty, so you might want to run it before you go to bed and just let it do it’s work overnight. But before you do, extend your sleep mode timer to like eight hours or infinity, so the computer won’t shut down, hibernate or go to sleep in the middle of the run. Otherwise you’ll wake up the next day and find that the program went to pause when the computer went to sleep. It’s a glitch I hope they will fix someday, maybe in the next version.

Also, after you click start, there will be a screen that shows this dial going around and off to the left will be the twelve items it is scanning. At the bottom center of the screen there will be, in teeny tiny font, Automatic Fix. If you click that, there will be drop-down menu with such items as Autofix and shut down, Autofix and restart, etc. Choose Autofix and Restart on your first run. That is because some of the operations, such as registry defrag, can only be completed by rebooting the computer.

After your first run, most runs won’t take more than a few minutes if you scan a few times a week and keep your computer clean. I usually run a scan before I go to bed and set the Autofix at shutdown. Or, I’ll run a scan first thing in the morning. I keep my machine clean and I get good performance out it.

You can always abort the scan at any time, as well. So, if you need to get back online and you think the scan is taking too long, just abort and do it again when you have more time.

Oh,shit, this got long. Sorry.

LOL! Your shit is always long, @Espiritus_Corvus, but so easy to read. Not a problem. Thanks very much.