Computer Slow? Check Your RAM

[For 8/2]

It seemed my computer had been running really slow lately. It wasn't spyware or anything like that because I'd taken care of that stuff recently using SpyBot, Ad-Aware, SUPERAntiSpyware, and Spyware Blaster. I had also cleaned unneeded files from my hard drive so I had plenty of space. Yet it still seemed that the hard drive was being accessed for almost every little task.

So I opened up the case and checked the RAM cards. Sure enough, one of them -- even though they're clamped in at both ends -- seemed a little loose when I pushed on it. When you only have 512K and just half of that is functional, everything is going to slow to a crawl. Now everything seems back to normal speeds.

Moral of the story: Check your physical banks of RAM from time to time. You may not be using all the memory you think you are.