How do I tell how much memory I have?

Want to know how much memory you have in your desktop PC or laptop? There are a huge number of options available, so let’s race through four quickfire methods – and reveal some extra tips on the way.

An easy way to find out how much memory you have

Press the Windows key and type “view RAM”. The first search result will be for “View RAM info”. Select that and you’ll see the screen below.

You can see the processor and the amount of memory (RAM) you have installed near the bottom of the screen.

Another neat way to find out how much memory you have

That answers the basic information, but if I’m playing with a new machine I prefer to call up an overview of what’s inside.

Again, it’s easy to do. Press the Windows key and type “sysinfo”. This will deliver the following handy window:

Note this also shows you what your Windows Product ID is (at the bottom). Always useful to know.

Find out how much memory you have – and how much is being used

If you want to figure out what’s eating your memory, Task Manager is your friend. Right-click the taskbar and select “Task Manager” from the fly-out menu.

You’ll see the Processes tab first. If you click the Memory column at the top then it will sort every process by how much memory it’s using. What a shock – it’s Chrome on my computer!

However, if you just want to see how much memory is installed then hit the Performance tab. Click on Memory and you’ll see lots more detailed information, including the total RAM at the top right of the window.

Take a closer look below the graph (showing memory usage over time) and you’ll see the speed of the memory and how many slots are used. Handy if you want to upgrade.

The even neater way to find out how much memory you have

If you’re after a summary of the key components of your laptop or PC then I recommend calling up a handy Microsoft utility called System Information.

Press the Windows key, but this time type “sysinfo32”. You’ll see something like this:

There’s a lot more information here, right down to which precise build of Windows you’re running and your BIOS details.

If you’re interested, you can also delve into exactly what components are inside your computer.

Select the “+” symbol next to Components and you can find out the sound driver, what printers have been installed, the wireless chipset – pretty much everything.

If you need to share the information with someone for diagnosis, you can also export all this information as a text document. (File | Export, then just choose where you want to save it.)

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