RAM Windows 10 and Google Chrome

interstellaflyer

Last year I bought a HP 15-da0511sa notebook and was assured by the salesperson at Curry's PC World that 4GB RAM would be more than adequate due to the Core i3 7th Gen processor, I was never happy with the performance of this laptop, it was laggy, took a long time to wake up from lock screen and I was continually getting Google Chrome not responding errors, now I realise that really I should've taken it back but instead soldiered on blaming it all on Windows 10.   Last week I decided to look into upgrades and decided on an extra 4GB of RAM (couldn't stretch to 2 x 8) and an SSD.  I fitted the RAM and instant transformation, the laptop does everything pretty much instantly, no lagging, no Google Chrome not responding, no waiting 2 or 3 mins for the thing to wake up.   All this got me thinking, are laptops with only 4GB RAM and running full versions of Windows 10 fit for purpose? 

By the way, I didn't fit the SSD as the cloning process kept failing, funnily though it worked on my old Toshiba windows 7 laptop so I used it in that instead.

neilmcl

I would look to see what else you have running in the background than to blame the "lack" of memory resource. I've never had any issues with running basic tasks in Windows 10 machines with only 4gb of RAM so no, I would have to disagree that a W10 4gb laptop is not fit for purpose.

Neil_Jones

"Fit for purpose" is up for debate.  Microsoft say Windows 10 can run in 2Gb of memory.  And it can.

interstellaflyer

neilmcl said:

I would look to see what else you have running in the background than to blame the "lack" of memory resource. I've never had any issues with running basic tasks in Windows 10 machines with only 4gb of RAM so no, I would have to disagree that a W10 4gb laptop is not fit for purpose.

Not sure if anything resource hungry is running in the background, I've got rid of the apps I don't need, I don't even have Office on it as I use it mostly for internet, I don't even have a lot of photos on it, just as an example, I was using around 57GB of the 1TB hard drive.  Could it be possible that the installed 4GB memory card wasn't working properly (unlikely I guess) and that installing the extra 4GB gave the machine the performance it should've had in the first place?  All I know is that it's gone from complete junk to everything happening pretty much ion an instant just by installing a £17 memory upgrade. 

JJ_Egan

Had been running Win 10 with 4GB for a number of years without a problem .Much much older CPU than in OP as well . But dont use Chrome .

interstellaflyer

JJ_Egan said:

Had been running Win 10 with 4GB for a number of years without a problem .Much much older CPU than in OP as well . But dont use Chrome .

How much older?  I'm just seeing if my trusty 8 year old Toshiba Satellite is worth updating from Windows 7 it has an AMD E!-1200 processor, 8GB RAM and a Sandisk 480GB SSD.

JJ_Egan

roughly 2008/9

forgotmyname

Ran Windows 10 in a Virtual Machine on a Windows 7 Desktop  that only had 4GB in total.  Athlon XP5200 Dual core machine.

Slight pauses yes but it was enough to do the tasks I required.  Only switched to windows 10 full time when I upgraded
the PC to the new Ryzen CPU's.  Annoys when they say a product MUST have windows 10 to function when the drivers
will install on windows 7 once you take away the version check.

I have a dual boot tablet windows 10/android and that has 4GB RAM and thats fine. I would not use it for video editing
but for general browsing etc its fine.

TheRightOne

interstellaflyer said:

Last year I bought a HP 15-da0511sa notebook and was assured by the salesperson at Curry's PC World that 4GB RAM would be more than adequate due to the Core i3 7th Gen processor, I was never happy with the performance of this laptop, it was laggy, took a long time to wake up from lock screen and I was continually getting Google Chrome not responding errors, now I realise that really I should've taken it back but instead soldiered on blaming it all on Windows 10.   Last week I decided to look into upgrades and decided on an extra 4GB of RAM (couldn't stretch to 2 x 8) and an SSD.  I fitted the RAM and instant transformation, the laptop does everything pretty much instantly, no lagging, no Google Chrome not responding, no waiting 2 or 3 mins for the thing to wake up.   All this got me thinking, are laptops with only 4GB RAM and running full versions of Windows 10 fit for purpose? 

By the way, I didn't fit the SSD as the cloning process kept failing, funnily though it worked on my old Toshiba windows 7 laptop so I used it in that instead.

Why would you bother to clone if there was hardly anything on the drive in the first place? The problem was not so much the RAM and more likely the HDD. The extra RAM is just partly making up for the lack of an SSD. 4 GB of RAM in conjunction with an SSD will be faster than 8 GB of RAM with an HDD.

TheRightOne

interstellaflyer said:

JJ_Egan said:

Had been running Win 10 with 4GB for a number of years without a problem .Much much older CPU than in OP as well . But dont use Chrome .

How much older?  I'm just seeing if my trusty 8 year old Toshiba Satellite is worth updating from Windows 7 it has an AMD E!-1200 processor, 8GB RAM and a Sandisk 480GB SSD.

I'm running Windows 10 64-bit on an AMD Turion(tm) 64 X2 Mobile Technology TL-60 from early 2007. Yours is five years newer, but with relatively poor processing power. It's saving grace being the graphics capability.

I would buy a cheap £20 SSD for the Toshiba and clean install Windows 10 to it. Then I would fit the existing 480 GB SSD to your new laptop and clean install Windows 10 to that.

interstellaflyer

TheRightOne said:

interstellaflyer said:

Last year I bought a HP 15-da0511sa notebook and was assured by the salesperson at Curry's PC World that 4GB RAM would be more than adequate due to the Core i3 7th Gen processor, I was never happy with the performance of this laptop, it was laggy, took a long time to wake up from lock screen and I was continually getting Google Chrome not responding errors, now I realise that really I should've taken it back but instead soldiered on blaming it all on Windows 10.   Last week I decided to look into upgrades and decided on an extra 4GB of RAM (couldn't stretch to 2 x 8) and an SSD.  I fitted the RAM and instant transformation, the laptop does everything pretty much instantly, no lagging, no Google Chrome not responding, no waiting 2 or 3 mins for the thing to wake up.   All this got me thinking, are laptops with only 4GB RAM and running full versions of Windows 10 fit for purpose? 

By the way, I didn't fit the SSD as the cloning process kept failing, funnily though it worked on my old Toshiba windows 7 laptop so I used it in that instead.

Why would you bother to clone if there was hardly anything on the drive in the first place? The problem was not so much the RAM and more likely the HDD. The extra RAM is just partly making up for the lack of an SSD. 4 GB of RAM in conjunction with an SSD will be faster than 8 GB of RAM with an HDD.

Because it was the easiest option for me, the Sandisk SSD that I was struggling with is now in my older laptop, I don't know why but I had no cloning issues with Windows 7 I did notice the serial number on the Sandisk SSD started 2014, could that mean a compatibility issue with Windows 10?  I bought a Crucial 500GB SSD which is now fitted in my newer laptop, no such cloning issues and from cloning to fitting took less than half an hour and that included downloading the cloning software.  I must add fitting the SSD has not lifted the performance massively over just the extra RAM.