Freeing up ram space?

Before I begin, I am very sorry because I am sure this question has been asked hundreds of times before. Recently my computer has become more slow, an I believe it is because of the ram. To be honest, I don't have the money right now to upgrade the ram, so I am looking for some suggestions to minimize the usage of it. Here is a screen shot of what I think may help you guys. Thanks a lot!

My computer has 512MB of ram and I am running Windows XP

Up..

up

Why are you running multiple instances of Chrome (browser)?
Select them and click on End Process.

Why are you running multiple instances of Chrome (browser)?
Select them and click on End Process.

Could it be because I have multiple tabs open? I am not sure.

Surely you can scrounge up 30 bucks for a 1 gig stick from Wal-Mart. It's worth it, believe me.

If you can't, just don't run too many things at once (more than one or two programs), and use "msconfig" at the Run box to disable startup items (usually unnecessary items that eat RAM).

XP is pretty good about RAM usage, but your programs are not always so kind. Limit the multi-tasking, and you should see better performance.

Low RAM is the reason for probably about 75% of the slow computers out there (that's just my guesstimate).

Maybe Santa will bring you some RAM for Christmas!

Seriously, though, the only way to minimize usage is to run less programs and background tasks.

Chrome is also known to eat up a lot of RAM. Try Internet Explorer 8.

Also, the screenshot was taken while AVG was doing an update. It's common for a system to lag considerably while an antivirus program is updating.

Could it be because I have multiple tabs open? I am not sure.

Nope.
When the browser is open, it only shows up as a single instance (irrespective of the no. of tabs) in the Task Manager.
Unless of course, you have multiple instances of the browser running.

Another thing you could try is to increase the paging file size. A paging file is a dedicated amount of space on your hard drive that your computer uses as if it were RAM. On computers that have a lot of RAM, increasing the paging file doesn't do too much, but since yours only has 512 MB, it might make a difference. To do that, go to control panel, and double click on "system". Select the "advanced" tab, and click on "settings" under the performance section. Again, select the "advanced" tab in the "performance options" window, and there, at the bottom, there should be some information about the paging file size for you computer. If you have the free space on your hard drive, try doubling or tripling it. Try changing the paging file size to something like 6138 MB, and let me know how that works. Also, the suggestion of using "msconfig" to disable startup programs is a very good one. I did that on my computer the other day, and it's much faster now.