what happens to data currently held in RAM when the PC is switched off?
102570
It simply diapears, computer ram needs power to hold data.
520484
Depending on how much you "strain" your computer, the RAM will get more and more fragmented thus the performance will get worse.\nIf you don't need your computer running at night time, shut it down! This will save energy and spare the components.\n\nThere is still a common misbelief that turning the computer off and on will lead to a higher power consumption caused by the boot process. Not with todays computers!
41843
Check the Memory on your PC, it may be faulty.
898722
Likely hood is that you'll do a fair bit of damage.\n\nA) You'll crash your computer. There is now no data to access from Windows.\nB) You will most likely hurt your harddrive. you could short circuit it, wipe data, or break mechanisms within the actual drive.\n\nand most importantly.. You'll most likely hurt yourself. it will cost you money to get this fixed, and you could ELECTROCUTE yourself!\n\nby the way,\nWHY ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING THIS?!?\nYou could stop all of these issues by just turning your computer OFF!\n\n\nPlease don't do this... \nHope this helps,\nmitch
941251
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/question175.htm\nhttp://computer.howstuffworks.com/ram.htm
357539
Not in XP.  Vista will have a feature called Super Prefetch or something like that that supposedly will allow you to do this.  But there are many reasons why you wouldn't want to do this.     \n\nNumber one is the fact that those USB Drives can be knocked out or disconected fairly easily.  And were you to, let's say, be running a very important application that happened to be using said device when it got disconnected (read moved a few milimeters) then you could have a serious system crash that might even result (if this feature is designed poorly) in a reinststall.  \n\nNumber two is memory bandwidth.  USB 2.0 Moves at best at 480 MegaBits per second.  The memory on your system should be (if it is at all modern) 3 times that.  So performance wise you'd take a hit.  \n\nFinally:  RAM is cheap.  1 GB DDR 400 Costs a little more than a 1 GB Flash Drive but isn't constrained by either issue 1 or 2.  We aren't talking hundreds and hundreds of dollars here
827255
You can compare the RAM in you computer to the workspace on a desk. The more memory you have, the larger the workspace and the smoother things run. Windows uses "Virtual Memory" to make sure you always have some RAM free to use. It writes some of the less important items to a "Swap File" or" Page File" on your hard drive, and keeps them ready to be reloaded after you finish using which ever program needed the memory more. Its kind of like taking the least important papers off of your desk and putting them in a drawer to make room for something more important. They're still there, safe and sound waiting for you to grab them up again, but they're not on your dektop with everything else. Understand the metaphor? You can run out of Virtual Memory for a couple of reasons. Is your hard disk getting pretty full? Since your hard drive is where the "Swap file" needed for virtual memory is stored, with your disk full, you may no longer be able to store the file in its entirety. If thats not the case, you may want to change the size of your Virtual Memory. You can do it by right clicking on MY COMPUTER go to PROPERTIES, click on the ADVANCED tab, where you see it say PERFORMANCE  click on SETTINGS, then click on the ADVANCED tab, down where it says VIRTUAL MEMORY click change. Usually "System Managed Size" works fine, but if you're having trouble with this one, then up it a couple hundred MB with "Custom Size." And of course, getting more RAM never hurts either.
154600
This can lead to two things.\n\n1.  Power supply is gone\n2.  BIOS is gone
1054325
None. is just a way to power off your computer without losing what you were doing. It saves everything you were doing from ram to the hard drive, and then it goes back to the ram, allowing to save whole seasons of work, when you have to run.\n\nWorks best on laptops
979593
Clean it up before you possibly add more RAM.\nDownload the following specific programs for free and learn how to use each after temporarily turning off system restore.\nGoogle free downloads from majorgeeks.com:\nHijackthis\nHijackthis log\nAVG anti-virus\nAd-Aware anti-adware&#92;\nSpybot anti-spyware\nGood luck!!!
76002
If you have the Windows XP firewall, then you've already gotten the answer.  But in my opinion, if you have a hardware router, get rid of the software firewall.  If you don't open any ports you're better protected than with a software firewall and no memory is used.  Why waste ram if you don't need to.\n\nDon't listen to the other opinions.  Computers are my job.  IF (and only IF) you have a router, get rid of the firewall.
1155941
Here is how your computer works, you have two memory areas, ram and rom, rom is the place where your programs are stored whether it be a hard drve, a cd, etc.  now for the good part, ram is the area where your programs in rom are loaded to when you run them. lets say you have 256 megs of ram....you got a program running that uses 100 megs of ram, you got another program that uses another 100 megs also running, and last but not least you have another program running that uses 57 megs. guess what happens? you only have 256 megs of ram and you are using 257 megs of ram. things aint equatin rite! it may even run like this but, shit has to be dumped from ram and reloaded into ram to share the ram. this takes much time! sometimes it will lock you up even! the less crap you have running in the background the faster your computer will respond. got it? \n\nALL WEBSITES THAT CLAIM FREE MUSIC DOWNLOADS, PORN, ONLINE GAMES, GAMBLING ETC. are infested with spyware, adware, trojans, malicious software, highjackers and viruses! Got it? Anyone who tells you different is a fool! If you dont mind having your system become inffected then feel free to use any of them. If you choose too, dont come back and whine because your system has slowed down or failed to boot. Been working with PCs and the internet from the get go and have cleaned tons of systems out because of this. If you dont heed this advice it makes no difference to me....I make good money at diggin this crap out!
1032985
Yes, pull the Motherboard battery for a few minutes.\n\nOnce the charge drains, your MB should be back at it's factory defaults.\n\nResponse to question: \nOnly the BIOS is affected.  Nothing on your hard drive is touched.  If you made some tweaks to your BIOS you will need to make them again, since any tweaks (along with the BIOS password) will be lost when the battery is removed.
869715
No you cannot. RAM sticks inside the PC are 'lightning fast' compared to USB sticks. USB are horribly slow.\nAlso, RAM memory is made so that it forgets everything when the power is taken away. USB sticks are the opposite. They are 2 completely different types of memory.
1153480
You could try dividing by zero, or writing in a nonexistant memory location, but the Operating system won't let you do those things.  \n\nYour best bet might be to pull the power plug.\n\nNote that you may lose data!
275553
(m)\n\nThis is system memory that is simulated by the hard drive. When all the RAM is being used (for example if there are many programs open at the same time) the computer will swap data to the hard drive and back to give the impression that there is slightly more memory.
836015
First, it does NOT damage your computer.\n\nSecond, memory dump is basically a tool that takes a snapshot of the entire content of your memory, and dumps all that into a single file. Say you have 1 gigabyte of physical memory and 1.5 gigabyte of virtual memory, then a "full memory dump" will be 2.5 gigabyte in size, but Windows usually just do a partial dump of the program that generated the problem. Theoretically, if the problem is serious enough, the programmers can take that dump and analyze that, plus other info, to trace the cause of the problem.\n\nBasically, the program you ran somehow accessed some memory that does NOT belong to it. This could caused by many different things, from bad programming to malicious intent and everything in between. The net result is the operating system decided that it can no longer run safely, thus, it dumped the important stuff to a file, then restart the machine.