HP laptop memory upgrade question

searchlight123

hi
i have a HP Envy15-ah150na laptop that has been upgraded with a 480gb SSD.

i understand this laptop has 8gb of DDR3 memory but am wondering if an upgrade to 16gb would be beneficial? i don't know if it has just one slot of 8gb memory or 2 slots of 4gb. if it has 1 slot of 8gb can i buy just 1 extra slot of memory to use with the existing one? (if indeed it has 2 memory slots to begin with!)

without opening the case is there a way of knowing what memory is contained in it. all specs i can see online just detail the 8gb but not how it's configured.

laptop is used for general use not a gaming device at all.

many thanks

agrinnall

This seems to be the service and maintenance guide for your model, if you trawl through it you might find the answer.


http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c04686890


(I linked to the manual from this page https://support.hp.com/us-en/product/hp-envy-15-ah100-notebook-pc/8499284/model/9249385/manuals)

searchlight123

agrinnall wrote: »

This seems to be the service and maintenance guide for your model, if you trawl through it you might find the answer.


http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c04686890


(I linked to the manual from this page https://support.hp.com/us-en/product/hp-envy-15-ah100-notebook-pc/8499284/model/9249385/manuals)

thank you.
do you know/think an upgrade from 8gb to 16gb would provide much of a boost?

EveryWhere

tonygold wrote: »

thank you.
do you know/think an upgrade from 8gb to 16gb would provide much of a boost?

Depend on for what you will use the laptop. But in general, I would state no.

Did you run a clean install when you installed the SSD or did you clone?

searchlight123

EveryWhere wrote: »

Depend on for what you will use the laptop. But in general, I would state no.

Did you run a clean install when you installed the SSD or did you clone?

laptop only used for surfing and very basic word processing etc.

i cloned my previous disk but that was not running anything i wanted rid of and wanted to retain all my software and settings. i'm pleased with the result but just wondering now if there is anythig to gain from upgrading theDDR memory?

that

at a command prompt type 'systeminfo'
look for the line that shows 'Total Physical Memory:'

Think you will have to open it up, because if you have 8gb, that is usually two 4gb sticks, rather than the more expensive 1x8gb stick.

https://www.crucial.com/ is normally good at guessing the max ram for your system.

Will it be an advantage? well it depends on what you run. For myself there is no real advantage (most of the time) between 4gb and 8gb. You need to at least keep an eye on task manager > Performance tab to find the bottle necks.

searchlight123

that wrote: »

at a command prompt type 'systeminfo'
look for the line that shows 'Total Physical Memory:'

Think you will have to open it up, because if you have 8gb, that is usually two 4gb sticks, rather than the more expensive 1x8gb stick.

https://www.crucial.com/ is normally good at guessing the max ram for your system.

Will it be an advantage? well it depends on what you run. For myself there is no real advantage (most of the time) between 4gb and 8gb. You need to at least keep an eye on task manager > Performance tab to find the bottle necks.

thanks for info. i ran a crucial system scan which only showed that i could purchase 2x 8gb memory slots for my laptop so that was why i was wondering if i could buy just 1 memory slot to use alongside mine (if indeed i have 1x 8gb installed already)?

searchlight123

that wrote: »

at a command prompt type 'systeminfo'
look for the line that shows 'Total Physical Memory:'

Think you will have to open it up, because if you have 8gb, that is usually two 4gb sticks, rather than the more expensive 1x8gb stick.

https://www.crucial.com/ is normally good at guessing the max ram for your system.

Will it be an advantage? well it depends on what you run. For myself there is no real advantage (most of the time) between 4gb and 8gb. You need to at least keep an eye on task manager > Performance tab to find the bottle necks.

using command prompt as suggested shows total physical memory as 7,647MB (but doesn't indicate whether that is by using 2x 4gb or 1x 8gb memory slots.

oh well, i suspect it's opening up time! just not sure if the cost £90 ish is a worthwhile upgrade or not?

thanks again.

that

tonygold wrote: »

i cloned my previous disk

Depending what you used to clone it....


you want to make sure the ahci is selected in the bios, probably already is

then check the TRIM is enabled by typing
fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify
and the results are
NTFS DisableDeleteNotify = 0 (Disabled)
ReFS DisableDeleteNotify = 0 (Disabled)

if they are not type
fsutil behavior set DisableDeleteNotify 0

Ideally the sectors should align, possibly different to the original disk to align to 4k sectors, but some backup and restore software does this automatically like MiniTool Partition Wizard.
To check this should work, or google will give you something
https://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/paul/using-diskpart-and-wmic-to-check-disk-partition-alignment/

... and no this will probably not significantly increase your speed, but may make the ssd last longer

that

I bough my laptop and it specifically said 1x8gb. on opening two years later it turned out to be 2x4gb.

There might be some hp diagnostic tool for the laptop that tells you?

you also could try from an administrative cmd prompt
wmic MEMORYCHIP get BankLabel,DeviceLocator,Capacity,Tag

but eyes do not lie

EveryWhere

https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html tells you exactly what you have on-board. No need to open her up.