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? Increase in RAM will benefit, please

AroundAgain

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Posted February 17, 2013 at 10:05PM

Hi

Friend's laptop - Samsung R519, Win 7 Pro / 32-bit, Processor Intel Celeron Dual-Core 1.9GHz

1Gb RAM installed, 2 slots (apparently can take up to 4Gb, of which 3+Gb would be available - my understanding)

I accept that this laptop won't be superfast but I'm wondering if an increase of RAM would likely make much impact on it being a bit faster, so would value your opinions/advice, please

Here are some screen dumps of Performance, in Task Manager. RAM is consistently at approc 50% before doing anything but, when just browsing or emailing from webmail site, the memory seems to go up to about 85%.

Here is a shot of what is using memory when no programs open, ie idle http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/4025/allprocessesmemoryusage.jpg

Performance - Screen dump when Idle - CPU 0% / Memory Usage 506Mb http://img541.imageshack.us/img541/2421/idlekh.jpg

Screen dump when attaching this image to email in web mail (Firefox) http://img849.imageshack.us/img849/668/71486084.jpg

I do hope that helps to see what is happening ;)

If increase would be considered beneficial, should I go for 2 or 4Gb - obviously cost/benefit would be a consideration. Also, if to increase just to 2Gb, would it be worth risking just adding 1Gb from ebay??? ;)

Again, I do thank you for all your help and advice

Cheers

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Nontek

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Posted February 17, 2013 at 10:12PM

2Gb would not make a great difference, 4Gb would at least show some increase in speed compared to the 1Gb.

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AroundAgain

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Posted February 17, 2013 at 10:17PM

Thanks Nontek

'Some' increase sounds, to me, as if it wouldn't be much. Is that what you are implying? Do you think the difference would be worth approx £40 to upgrade the memory? It seems a lot of money unless it showed an appreciable difference

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lotvic

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Posted February 17, 2013 at 10:29PM

Beware the cheap ram on sales sites, you have to be sure you are getting exactly the right sort the motherboard uses. Better to spend a little more and be guaranteed it's correct. Do a scan on Crucial.com to find out what ram it is.

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AroundAgain

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Posted February 17, 2013 at 10:30PM

Forgot to ask, is there anything running in the background that I could take off and save some RAM usage?

See first of my 3 links to images, above

I've not any idea which, if any, of the background programs can be taken off, so daren't do it!

Thanks

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xania

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Posted February 18, 2013 at 2:29PM

You may find it useful to read this article:

http://www.techradar.com/news/computing-components/how-much-ram-do-i-need-721332

Frankly 1 GB is pushing your luck but you also need to check the speed of your RAM. You don't mention what speed is installed. Your laptop can take 4GB of 800 MHz RAM, so IMHO you should opt for 2x2GB DIMMS.

I did this for a relative's laptop last month and there was a quite dramatic improvement.

I think this will fit the bill

http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/listparts.aspx?model=R519&Cat=RAM

= £50.39 incl

However, RAM is not the only answer. An almost full HDD or and badly fragmented drive will also slow you down. And there's all that junk that computers accumulate after a couple of years. So perhaps checking these items first may save you some money?

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AroundAgain

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Posted February 18, 2013 at 5:02PM

Thanks Zania - yes, an interesting article, thx. The crucial.com link is the same one as I'd got so that's reassuring, eh? Thanks for mentioning speed. It prompted me to download CPU-Z onto the laptop to see what that shows.

It would be useful to be able to assess the increase in performance, if possible, if RAM was increased as my friend will be taking my advice - over to you folks ... ;)

So, if the following dumps are of use, I'm hoping someone is au fait with CPY-Z and can interpret the results into some sort of useful information ;) Kronus the second was who recommended this program to me a few months back when I was trying to increase RAM on another friend's PC! Thx to K the 2nd :)

CPU - http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/5075/cpuzcpuo.jpg

Caches - http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/1965/cpuzcashes.jpg

Memory - http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/7379/cpuzmemory.jpg

Graphics - http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/6145/cpuzgraphics.jpg

Mainboard - http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/5705/cpuzmainboard.jpg

SPD - http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/4410/cpuzspd.jpg

About - http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/3261/cpuzabout.jpg

Again, thanks for all your help

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