New laptop! Not as quick as I thought it would be :-(

[oalcock]

Hello All,

 

I obviously work in IT, and this may sound a bit of a novice question - but I really don't know the answer and hopefully you can help?

 

I used to use a HP Pentium 4 laptop with 3GB of Ram with Win 7 (not originally installed with Win 7, I purchased a license for it). I have now upgraded to a HP i3 Processor with 16GB of Ram with Win 7. It is obviously quicker than the old laptop, but not as quick as I would expect for 16GB. Is there anything I can do to like kick the RAM into touch sort of thing as I don't feel I am getting 16GB Ram of power!

 

I should have bought an i5 or an i7 really, but a HP laptop with i3, beats audio, and 750GB hard drive with 16GB of RAM, from PC world for £429.00 - I just couldn't refuse. (even though my previous laptop had JBL sound, and I found the JBL sounded better than the beats audio.... Do they just not make things like they used to?

 

What can I do to make this machine - "rocket like"?

 

Oliver.

[Tallwood_6]

Replace the hard drive with an SSD

[Steve21]

Personally I think this is a common misunderstanding that for 95% of things 16gb ram is no different to 8gb or even 4, unless you "need" the extra just having it won't make a program run faster as such.

 

Same with processors etc, sure it will be but faster but unless you're maxing your current one out won't see huge difference.

 

As mentioned above things like SSD or higher cache would be better

 

But just personal opinion

 

Steve

[twin--turbo]

You are running a 64Bit OS are you?

 

If the programs are not using the ram it won't be needed.

 

A simple look at the performance tab on task manager will confirm that memory is not the issue.

 

You could try reducing the swap space to a bare minimum, which may force windows not to page out ram to disk ( but it should not be doing that anyway. )

 

 

How and when is it slow?

 

I am using a 6-7 year old Dell D520 Centrino Duo with 2GB ram and I hardly find it underpowered, but I use Linux.

 

Rob

[Arthur]

As mentioned above, replace the HDD with an SSD - the difference between them is like night and day. Also, don't do anything stupid like disabling the page file.

 

unless you "need" the extra just having it won't make a program run faster as such.

One word: Superfetch.

[EduTech]

I would get an SSD you will then see an difference! I assure you :-) I have a HP ProBook 5330M and mine has i5/8GB RAM and an SSD, I purchased the exact same laptop for a colleague but without the SSD and mine is far far faster!

 

James.

[Blue_Cookeh]

An SSD is literally the best upgrade you can do to any modern computer, I got one recently and it's amazing. I can get booted into Windows 8 and load the entire Office 2010 suite in about 25 seconds... the slowest points are the BIOS and my password entry!

[mavhc]

do something stupid like turning off the page file, so your apps crash once in a while, being able to switch between 200 chrome tabs instantly makes up for it

[Arthur]

being able to switch between 200 chrome tabs instantly makes up for it

I can do that without turning off the page file.

[mavhc]

I can do that without turning off the page file.

 

Without an SSD?

[sonofsanta]

As everyone else says, SSD; get a 7mm Crucial m4 128Gb or Samsung 830 128Gb (or 256, if you're feeling flush). They're both well priced with regards to other SSDs and their own performance, the Samsung is faster and a bit more money but well worth it. The Intel drives are good (model depending) but usually cost a fair whack more.

 

If you need bulk storage, get an external USB. It's worth giving up the raw gigabytes, believe me.

[Arthur]

Without an SSD?

That's with an SSD and plenty of RAM (32GB). How much RAM do you have out of interest?

 

The other problem I have found with Chrome is that if you leave it open with 100+ tabs for weeks at a time, you will usually get one or more tabs consuming 25-75% of your CPU constantly. Not sure if it is website or extension related, but restarting Chrome fixes it.

[mavhc]

That's with an SSD and plenty of RAM (32GB). How much RAM do you have out of interest?

That was with 16GB ram, although I did it with 3GBs on my xp work laptop, just had to kill all the chrome tabs as they loaded

 

 

The other problem I have found with Chrome is that if you leave it open with 100+ tabs for weeks at a time, you will usually get one or more tabs consuming 25-75% of your CPU constantly. Not sure if it is website or extension related, but restarting Chrome fixes it.

 

At least you can see and kill that process though.

[3s-gtech]

As for the audio, Beats stuff seems to be massively over-rated/overpriced. Wouldn't be at all surprised if the JBL audio on your old one was superior!