Total/ Available Physical Memory Question

[klaimkilla]

My computer has been running pretty slow lately...Ive cleaned out unwanted programs, helped a little, but then I looked at my Total/Available Physical Memory in my system information and it has me puzzled....It seems REALLY low. 512 MB? Can that be right? is that my RAM? Is it normal to only have 56MB available out of 512? Thanks for your help!

****SYSTEM INFORMATION****
OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name DAZZLE
System Manufacturer Gateway
System Model LEXINGTON
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 4 GenuineIntel ~1993 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date Intel Corp. MV85010A.15A.0049.P07.0204171416, 17/04/2002
SMBIOS Version 2.3
Windows Directory C:\WINNT
System Directory C:\WINNT\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale Canada
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158)"
User Name DAZZLE\Owner
Time Zone Pacific Standard Time
Total Physical Memory 512.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 56.84 MB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 1.22 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys

 

[Nodsu]

It is good too have minimal amount of physical memory available. This means that all your RAM is actually doing something, not just sitting there empty.

It is quite tricky to find out the real memory usage in Windows. The best way to get an idea is to look at the Performance tab is Task Manager. You see three values for Physical Memory there: Total, Available and Cache. Put Available and Cache together to get an idea of how much RAM is "free" for programs to use.

 

[klaimkilla]

It is good too have minimal amount of physical memory available. This means that all your RAM is actually doing something, not just sitting there empty.

It is quite tricky to find out the real memory usage in Windows. The best way to get an idea is to look at the Performance tab is Task Manager. You see three values for Physical Memory there: Total, Available and Cache. Put Available and Cache together to get an idea of how much RAM is "free" for programs to use.

Thanks for the info. I also found some helpful stuff to speed up my computer HERE