The concept of downloading RAM sounds pretty great, right? Imagine popping over to a website that offers free RAM downloads so you can play your favorite video game without stuttering. To fully understand whether you can download RAM or not, you must understand what RAM actually Is.
RAM is a physical device that you install into your motherboard, when you install RAM, they go into the DIMM slots, and from there, your CPU will be able to access it. RAM is meant to be super fast as it’s meant to send and receive information between your CPU, it uses flash memory chips instead of mechanical means as they’re significantly faster.
Answer: Wait, so if RAM is a physical device, how is it possible to download more RAM? Exactly, downloading more RAM isn’t possible, so if you’ve ever come across a website offering free RAM downloads, it’s probably a virus. The idea of downloading RAM actually originates from meme culture for the tech illiterate.
Where Did Downloading RAM Originate?
Downloading more RAM is a term that is commonly associated with people that aren’t quite knowledgeable about computer hardware, and as we know with computer hardware, you cannot download them. Downloading is reserved for virtual data sent over the internet, not physical entities.
The term downloading more RAM actually originates from meme culture, and it’s often used to troll people who aren’t knowledgeable about computer hardware. It’s quite malicious if you think about it, imagine telling someone to download more RAM, and they actually download a virus instead. It’s almost similar to telling someone to delete System32 which can cause a lot of problems with your computer.
The actual origin comes from a user on Apple Insider called SpcMs, and they started a thread asking whether he/she can download more RAM for their computer as it’s low on memory. And from there, the meme spread like wildfire with numerous threads popping up all over the internet asking whether they can download more RAM.
Can You Actually Download More RAM?
Besides the meme, no you can’t actually download more RAM, this is because RAM is a physical entity where downloading is only reserved for virtual entities. If you could download RAM, then there would be no need to purchase RAM kits. The best way to get more RAM is by buying more RAM which is identical to the ones you’re currently using.
RAM consists of silicon and memory chips, and as a whole, your RAM is installed into your computer’s motherboard which has DIMM slots, this is where you slot the RAM. Anyone offering free RAM downloads is most likely trying to scam you into purchasing their cheap online RAM or trick you into downloading malware.
The potential consequence of downloading RAM is malware, and such malware could be particularly nasty. In the quest of downloading more RAM, you may actually end up with less RAM as you can end up with RAM-hungry malicious software. Or worse you can end up with crypto mining malware which will use your computer’s hardware for financial gain.
How To Increase/Add Computer Memory?
The best way to increase your computer’s memory is by obviously purchasing more RAM, if you have two extra DIMM slots, you can purchase another two identical RAM modules for extra capacity. This will also allow you to run your memory in dual-channel so you can maintain those bandwidth benefits.
Or you can actually reduce the number of applications you’re running on your computer, while this technically won’t increase your RAM capacity, it will free up some RAM. The biggest culprit that will likely consume the most RAM is your browser, having multiple tabs/instances open will consume huge amounts of RAM.
If you have random memory sticks lying around, if they’re of the same DDR generation, you may be able to install them into your PC. Yes, you can indeed mix and match memory, while it isn’t recommended, you can get the extra memory you need. If the memory is of different capacities, the memory controller won’t be able to run it in dual channel, at best you can run them in flex channel.
What Is Swap Memory?
In the instance you run out of memory on your RAM modules, your computer will access what we call swap memory. Swap memory is memory used on your hard disk or solid-state drive, and you can probably tell it’ll be extremely slow. This memory is also known as virtual memory, and it will change data between real memory and virtual memory.
So it can seem that you can use your hard drive as a secondary memory device, but if this was completely possible, you would have an extremely slow process. Action that would usually take seconds could take minutes or even hours. Imagine loading GTA 5 from swap memory, this would be completely ideal if you were a gamer.
Swap memory is great but you’re probably thinking how considering it’s extremely slow. Swap memory is great for applications that aren’t being used constantly, therefore it would be wise to store the data on disk instead of using up precious memory/RAM. Your operating system can use the free RAM memory for crucial applications such as the game you’re playing or operating system services. You should never rely on swap memory, you could run into system instabilities and even crashes.
Benefits Of Swap Memory:
- Useful for applications that aren’t being used, this means you can save RAM space for important applications
- Saves the RAM from running out of space
- Acts as a backup for RAM in case you actually do run out of computer memory.
Verdict
The verdict is no, you absolutely can’t download more RAM, and you shouldn’t even try. Attempting to download RAM can result in you potentially downloading harmful software that could slow down your computer and use it for financial gain.
The best way to increase your computer memory is to actually go for the physical thing, this means purchasing more RAM or using spare memory lying around. It’s worth mentioning that you can’t actually run out of RAM, your system will just go to the swap memory to free up RAM capacity.
