Extra RAM to speed up PC

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  • misterthrifty
    misterthrifty Posts: 476 Forumite
    Name Dropper First Post First Anniversary Combo Breaker
    Thanks Edward B, that's very useful. I have tried pasting the system information on here but for some reason??? it casued the board to block me for a day so I don't know if this message will work. TBH, my intention was to spend a small amount (sub £50) to improve the PC with little work required, but it seems it's a bit more complicated. I think for any larger expense it would be better to buy a new/refurb PC. What spec should I be looking for if it is to be used for basic internet & office applications?
    TIA
  • misterthrifty
    misterthrifty Posts: 476 Forumite
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    OK, that worked so I will try & paste the system details for my Hi-grade PC

    OS Name Microsoft Windows 10 Pro
    Version 10.0.14393 Build 14393
    Other OS Description Not Available
    OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
    System Name PC
    System Manufacturer higraded
    System Model System Product Name
    System Type x64-based PC
    System SKU To Be Filled By O.E.M.
    Processor Pentium(R) Dual-Core CPU E5400 @ 2.70GHz, 2700 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s)
    BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. 0314, 22/07/2009
    SMBIOS Version 2.5
    Embedded Controller Version 255.255
    BIOS Mode Legacy
    BaseBoard Manufacturer ASUSTeK Computer INC.
    BaseBoard Model Not Available
    BaseBoard Name Base Board
    Platform Role Desktop
    Secure Boot State Unsupported
    PCR7 Configuration Binding Not Possible
    Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
    System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
    Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
    Locale United Kingdom
    Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "10.0.14393.206"
    Username
    Time Zone GMT Standard Time
    Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 2.00 GB
    Total Physical Memory 1.97 GB
    Available Physical Memory 215 MB
    Total Virtual Memory 4.47 GB
    Available Virtual Memory 754 MB
    Page File Space 2.50 GB
    Page File C:\pagefile.sys
    Hyper-V - VM Monitor Mode Extensions Yes
    Hyper-V - Second Level Address Translation Extensions No
    Hyper-V - Virtualisation Enabled in Firmware Yes
    Hyper-V - Data Execution Protection Yes
  • GDB2222
    GDB2222 Posts: 24,660 Forumite
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    That spec is similar to the PC I am typing this on. You have a better CPU! But I have 2GB more RAM and an SSD. My system is really quite zippy for ordinary office-type activities.

    Have you checked yet to see whether your system is doing a lot of paging?
    No reliance should be placed on the above! Absolutely none, do you hear?
  • misterthrifty
    misterthrifty Posts: 476 Forumite
    Name Dropper First Post First Anniversary Combo Breaker
    Not sure what that is or how to check for it.....any tips?
    Cheers
  • GDB2222
    GDB2222 Posts: 24,660 Forumite
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    misterthrifty wrote: »
    Not sure what that is or how to check for it.....any tips?
    Cheers

    Emptybox explained: "If you want to see if more RAM would be helpful, then open up Task Manager (right click on taskbar and select), and keep an eye on the RAM usage as you work.
    If it's getting up to 80 or 90% usage then more RAM would alleviate that."

    Does that make sense, or do you need a more detailed explanation?
    No reliance should be placed on the above! Absolutely none, do you hear?
  • EdwardB
    EdwardB Posts: 462 Forumite
    Name Dropper First Anniversary First Post
    edited 13 March 2017 at 9:39PM
    misterthrifty wrote: »
    Not sure what that is or how to check for it.....any tips?
    Cheers
    misterthrifty wrote: »
    Available Physical Memory 215 MB

    The answer is in your system spec, just 215mb if physical memory, so if you do things like load an office app and a browser you probably hear a lot of hard disk activity as Windows is paging what is in Ram to disk and pulling stuff from disk into ram.

    You can see that with 4gb of ram GDB2222 does not have paging problem and with an SSD he makes his PC nippy, problem is what I said above; is it worth spending the money on this box when you could put that money towards a new machine or Mobo, CPU and Ram.

    Compared to your E5400 the Pentium N3700 is going to "feel" faster while a Core i3 6100 is going to feel like a racing car compared to that old 5400.

    One option I did not mention above was to do the basic £54 on upgrading the RAM to fix the swapping and then overclocking your E5400, the way I see it is that you have very little to lose and most motherboards these days allow you to do it in bios and roll back if it gets flaky.

    "The Pentium Dual Core E5400 is quite an overclocker I've found, taking it to 4.644GHz on air."

    http://www.overclock.net/t/1115369/intel-pentium-e5400-overclocking-guide

    Intro to Overclocking

    http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/259899-29-core-overclocking-guide

    This is spec of your current mobo

    https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/P5QPLAM/specifications/

    I ran overclocked Core2 Duo systems for years, never had a problem, in fact my buying strategy had always been to buy low end, use for a year or so, then overclock, they upgrade to mid or higher model CPU from eBay when prices fell.

    These days Intel locks the chips more and charges more for the ones that can be overclocked.

    I would still say you are probably better off throwing new money into a new system or new mobo, CPU and Ram.
    Please be nice to all MoneySavers. That’s the forum motto. Remember, the prime aim is to help provide info and resources. If you don’t like someone, their situation, their question or feel they’re intruding on ‘your board’ then please bite the bullet and think of the bigger issue. :cool::)
  • System
    System Posts: 178,093 Community Admin
    Photogenic Name Dropper First Post
    Change the Hard Drive to a SSD. A 128GB one can be bought for £40 or less. Stick the operating system and applications on it, leave your files, music, photos on the old drive.

    We have Dell systems at work, all 4GB and the Core 2 Duo ones with SSDs fitted feel faster than the Core i3 ones with normal mechanical hard drives. The bane of my existence at work is waiting for mechanical hard drives, they're basically the bottleneck in all computers and have been for many a year. For files between 30-50MB In the time it takes a mechanical hard drive to move the heads to where the data is on the platter for just the first sector the file is stored in without yet transferring anything to the computer a SSD has not only addressed the memory location it is stored in but transferred the whole file.

    Until you've experienced a SSD drive you can't believe just how much traditional drives hold back systems.
  • were
    were Posts: 632 Forumite
    some m'bords can be picky with ram, but for £15 for 4Gb is not bad
    http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4GB-2x2GB-DDR2-800-PC2-6400-Non-ECC-Unbuffered-Memory-RAM-4-Desktop-PC-240-pin/321472076259?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D20140122125356%26meid%3Dfaa2c5aad7814733aabb55408504c8c5%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D6%26mehot%3Dag%26sd%3D162379568426
  • EdwardB
    EdwardB Posts: 462 Forumite
    Name Dropper First Anniversary First Post
    were wrote: »
    some m'bords can be picky with ram, but for £15 for 4Gb is not bad
    http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4GB-2x2GB-DDR2-800-PC2-6400-Non-ECC-Unbuffered-Memory-RAM-4-Desktop-PC-240-pin/321472076259?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D20140122125356%26meid%3Dfaa2c5aad7814733aabb55408504c8c5%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D6%26mehot%3Dag%26sd%3D162379568426

    Great Call, I mean £15 is a pretty low risk to address the paging issue. HP is pretty solid brand so not likely to be incompatible.

    Then OP can decide if wants to perhaps get an SSD second hand or go with alternate direction.
    Please be nice to all MoneySavers. That’s the forum motto. Remember, the prime aim is to help provide info and resources. If you don’t like someone, their situation, their question or feel they’re intruding on ‘your board’ then please bite the bullet and think of the bigger issue. :cool::)
  • keith969
    keith969 Posts: 1,571 Forumite
    First Anniversary
    It's a low spec PC, if you can get an upgrade to 4gb ram and a SSD for less than £100 then that's probably worth going for. It's really not worth the faff of doing anything else short of taking it to the tip and getting something newer.
    For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong.
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