If you have a little bit of knowledge on computer hardware and how a system works, you might know that only “Refresh” is not enough to increase the performance of your computer or improve the RAM performance. There are many people, who waste a lot of time hitting the refresh button right after turning on the computer. If you have done that, but you haven’t got any major improvement, you can follow this tutorial where you can find some of the most practical ways to increase memory or RAM of a computer. It will help you get better performance.

Although RAM is an important part to make the computer faster, you should know that only RAM cannot do everything. You need to have a better motherboard, processor, etc.

1. Close All Unnecessary Apps

If you have a low RAM or Memory, you cannot use a lot of apps at the same time. This is a common mistake almost all the new computer users do. That is the main reason why most of the people face such problem. It doesn’t matter whether you have 4GB RAM or 16GB, you cannot open all the heavyweight apps at the same time. Let’s assume that you have a virtual machine, where half of the memory is already assigned. Now if you open some high-end apps such as Photoshop, Android Studio, etc. in your original machine, you will certainly get problems. Therefore, this is very important to close all the unnecessary apps and open only important apps at a time. Otherwise, you will end up facing such issues all the times.

2. Scan Whole System For Malicious Files

Sometimes your system consumes a lot of memory without any reason. You cannot find the cause yet it keeps on consuming a vast majority of RAM. If the aforementioned solution is not working for you, you should install a security shield and scan your computer with that. Many times, a system is under attack and users could not find it in the initial days. There are many malware and virus those use a lot of RAM without any proper reason. Therefore, you will keep adding RAM, and the malware will keep consuming it without your knowledge. To find malware or malicious file, you can certainly install any free or paid anti-malware software. Therefore, countless tools like Kaspersky, Bitdefender, Avira, Avast, etc. Choose anyone that you like, install and scan it accordingly.

Important Note: Don’t just scan the C drive or system drive. You should scan the whole system.

3. Disable Security Shield

A security shield runs in the background all the times, and that is how real-time malware detector works. If you get notification about a malicious file during any work, that means your antivirus is running the background. Not all the tools, but some tools can consume a lot of RAM. There are many people, who faced the same issue. It doesn’t matter whether you have an antivirus, firewall software or anything else, if you the problem has started after installing that software, you should disable it temporarily and check whether it solves the issue or not.

4. Optimize Virtual Machine and Games

If you have a high-end configuration, obviously you use some heavyweight apps like VMware, VirtualBox, etc. There are many people who work as a game tester, and this is a common problem for them. If you have some under-development apps or games or virtual machine, you should optimize it. If you have a virtual machine, you can install fewer apps, open less software, etc. On the other hand, if you have under-development games, you can ask the developer or uninstall that app right away.

These are some of the best practical tips and tricks that you can use to increase your RAM. However, if you are ready to spend some money, this is recommended to upgrade your hardware. You can always install more RAM. However, make sure you are using 64-bit of Windows. If you have a 32-bit architecture, your system cannot utilize more than 4GB RAM. Also, if you have DDR3 RAM, you should opt for DDR4. DDR4 is more power efficient and offers far better smoothness.