Upgrade Ram on iMac or Run Optimizer?
I’m not getting anything for mentioning these programs. Your experience may vary with them.
Last week I ordered some Additional Ram for our iMac 8 Gigs. I run Lion in 64 bit mode because that gives me nearly an extra gig of ram (the full 4 gigs) to use.
The Windows PC first;
Now on the PC before I re-installed windows as 64 bit I had tried for weeks to avoid it. I downloaded Advanced System Optimizer, I bought it, ran it a few times. It did help somewhat with making it “feel” faster. I even downloaded on the PC Cache Man XP, and other utilities. Cache man I uninstalled.
ASO Advanced System Optimizer for Windows -> yes it does help windows Performance feel faster. The largest speed increase came from using Ready Boost on a USB 8 Gig stick! This speed increase is noticeable in how Windows Redraws its desktop icons when something changes on the system. The USB Cache made this nearly instantaneous!
So ASO is a Yes! Though only marginal upgrades to the feel of speed. Some had to do with installed services, I think the rest for Windows 7 had to do with running 32 bit mode and being cramped into 3.12 GB of ram out of 4! The re-install to Windows 7 64Bit made a huge difference! Of course everyone experiences this, it feels faster at first, and then over time it seems to bog down.
I have obtained an un-installer for windows, which should help with removing software that bogs down the system coming up in the next 3 months. We shall see! I plan a memory upgrade there too!
Back to the iMac;
On the iMac (its a 2 year old model) I obtained “Mac Keeper” last week. I decided to purchase it because the iMac became dismally slow this year with a recent upgrade to Lion, running Skype, Xcode, Firefox, Thunderbird, and tons of other apps that are memory hungry at the same time, I noticed lots of slow down.
“Mac Keeper” helped with some of it, un-installs of unused software helped with getting rid of the rest. The iMac felt better daily. Still running Skype and Xcode together its slow.
With a 8 GB ram upgrade just 56$ including shipping, and its Kingston Ram! Wow! Good timing.
That’s now installed. The good news is it added with the 4 Gigs, because there are 4 memory slots, I just slide these in, and it all is working together so far (I come from a generation of “DON’T MIX RAM” including across brands etc.).
What remains to be seen is how well it performs here on out.
Mac Keeper = Yes worth it, for those who cannot afford the ram, or don’t have the system to support it!
(ASO) Advanced System Optimizer for Windows = Yes, helps clean up old software that doesn’t need to be on the system, helps unbog the system in services if they are running for no reason.
Ram Upgrade = Definitely YES if you can do it, you should! Don’t overestimate that just Adding Ram will make a system faster, sometimes you have to clean up, and sometimes only a re-install will do it! And finally, sometimes its bloat ware! Things get bigger with time, Look at Windows XP. 10 Years adds a LOT of size to the OS.
The big guns; Also nothing beats going in with a fine tooth comb and removing things that are unneeded yourself. A self optimization is sometimes necessary, not everyone is capable of this, and if you don’t KNOW what your DOING! DON’T DO IT! Self optimizations like removing unnecessary programs with their un-installer or a good un-installer program may be in order. I used Mac Keeper and ASO due to time constraints between projects, and really these companies make it their Duty to ensure a system is stable after optimization. Don’t underestimate the geeks hard at work for you with these programs! They’ve tested out the best options for stability and ensured a working order machine after the fact!
Windows Common Tools -> Disk cleanup -> yup use it! Check Disk is also important. SFC /scannow is too!
Mac -> Disk Check and backup (Time machine). its a unix os, so don’t forget run levels, services, and things of those nature at the command line.
CloneZilla -> honorable mention!
Keeping an Eye on things;
I have mixed RAM on the iMac, but each bank has its own Matched RAM, so long as only bank switching occurs and the memory controller can deal with it, everything will work fine! NO issues. If I have issues look forward to another post about this in another week. No post = no problems!
Ram type = DDR3-1066. Originally installed = 4 Gigs DDR3-1066 in slots 1/2, Added 8 Gigs DDR4-1066 in slots3/4
- eSpecialized