total tech newbie question [macbook]

[Grimmauld]

http://gyazo.com/247ad385539814ad95ca61f9f08896de.png?1350647733

hey there. i have a quick question. so my PC died about a year ago after a good 5-6 year run (woo) i inherited my mom's macbook since she didnt really use it. so now i use my macbook for school and leisure purposes. above are the specs for the macbook, which isnt anything special just the normal stuff it comes with. i was wondering if i went and bought this for it:

http://gyazo.com/f21e44a2e609391f6651906bf8a86b8a.png?1350647830

would it let my macbook run faster? would the fan rpm be lower as well? because i find my macbook's fan running loudly sometimes just from like watching movies/playing a browser game. any help is greatly appreciated and if you can point me towards the right direction id love it. thanks!

P.S. no mac vs pc discussions here please! :P

[Kieran]

Firstly, don't buy memory from Apple! Buy it from an independent store or you're asking to be ripped off. What model and year of Macbook is it as some of the older ones were actually limited to 4GB of ram.

[Tomm]

It won't make anything run faster unless you've got a lot of programs open at the same time. It also won't have any effect on your fan.

[Grimmauld]

ah, so RAM is just like more storage to have more files/stuff on your mac? i believe this was a 2009 model, but im not entirely sure.

so a 16gb macbook runs as fast as a 4gb macbook, but just has more potential storage space?

[Tomm]

No it is not storage space for files. In simple terms RAM holds running programs and their associated data, if you never use more than 4GB of RAM then there is no real performance boost from having 16GB. However if you ran out of RAM then your computer begins to swap data out from RAM to the much slower hard drive which results in quite a significant performance degradation.


ah, so RAM is just like more storage to have more files/stuff on your mac? i believe this was a 2009 model, but im not entirely sure.

so a 16gb macbook runs as fast as a 4gb macbook, but just has more potential storage space?

[myke]

ah, so RAM is just like more storage to have more files/stuff on your mac? i believe this was a 2009 model, but im not entirely sure.

so a 16gb macbook runs as fast as a 4gb macbook, but just has more potential storage space?

no re: your second question

and there have been a few things here and there posted about re: fan speeds. Macs dont get on well with flash or something.

[Grimmauld]

yeah, the fan runs loudly whenever i load like old shockwave versions of habbo or when i load runescape, which is java. Anyone have any suggestions in what i should do then? I have this app called memoryfree and it tells me how much free memory im not using and when i just simply am on runescape it down to like900mb or something

[Stephen!]

4GB is plenty for a laptop

[efq]

Like Kieran said above, don't buy memory from Apple, and I agree (and Apple is my religion!). But unless you are maxing out the memory regularly, then you won't need to get any more. If you're a heavy photoshop user with a movie running, habbo and a game and you find that for a strange reason (sarcasm) that it's running slow, then upgrade a bit more.

[Grimmauld]

i mean my uncle who is good with computers and stuff told me that 8gb would only cost me ~$80 and he'd like install it for me. but ive still got t see if my macbook is even capable of having more than 4gb ram

[Mr-Trainor]

i mean my uncle who is good with computers and stuff told me that 8gb would only cost me ~$80 and he'd like install it for me. but ive still got t see if my macbook is even capable of having more than 4gb ram
You will probably be able to have up to 8GB, but you can check here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1270#.