A common question among people who would like to know more about computer hardware is: Do I need more computer memory? Computer memory is more commonly know as RAM or Random Access Memory. It turns out there is a easy way to determine whether you need more RAM.

If you are using a windows operating system such as window xp or vista we can easily find out. To do this, hold the ctrl (control) + alt keys and then press del (delete) key on your keyboard. If you are in vista you may need to click "Start Task Manager". If not, the windows task manager should show up. Once it does, click the tab that says "performance".

Follow up:

You should see something like this:

Notice the memory gage on the left of the task manager. We see that it is at 702 MB. Now look down just below it and you will see that the total physical memory is 958 MB. We have a total of 1024 MB of physical memory inside the computer but the video card is using some of it. So the computer has 958 MB of usable memory. If your computer exceeds this mark for a fair amount of time you should consider adding more RAM to your computer.

When the RAM is fully utilized or maxed out you can see a big decrease in performance. This is because the operating system can no longer use the fast computer memory of RAM. To correct or ease this problem, programs will begin to use the Hard Drive as RAM. The Hard Drive was meant to store large quantities of memory to be accessed after a system reboot or loading files onto the RAM. The RAM on the other hand, is cleared and reloaded every time you restart your computer.

We call memory on the Hard Disk that is being used like RAM virtual memory. When you computer begins to use virtual memory it is "bottle-necked" or slowed down by the slower access speeds of the Hard Drive. So if you do notice that your computer slows down a lot when running programs or you can hear your Hard Drive working away for long periods of time you should see if you are using virtual memory. In other words, using up all your RAM.

The physical component of RAM will look like this: