Laptop RAM question

Rincewind · 22nd July 2020, 06:18 AM

Hi guys,

Recently there as a major Windows 10 upgrade on my laptop- plus a new version of Edge. Also a Winzip addition that helpful guys here helped me to disable!

Here's what my laptop says about itself:

Lenovo V310-141SK
Intel Core i3-6100U CPU
2.30 GHz
6.00 GB RAM (5.73 GB usable)

Prior to the W10 upgrade I had been having occasional 'freezes', where the machine stops, and I have to reboot. Typically, for instance, when I have several large excel spreadsheets open at the same time.

However, since the upgrade this is happening several times a day, so I'm assuming (a WAG, of course) that Billy Gates' stuff is taking up so much of the RAM that there's not really enough for me to play with.

My question is - is it likely to be feasible to replace the 6 GB Ram with 8, for instance, or maybe add another 6?

Thanking you in anticipation...

Worm · 22nd July 2020, 06:30 AM

In general, yes, absolutely.

This page suggests that you can go up to a max of 12GB.

Sometimes this is an easy task, sometimes less so. Never done a Lenovo so I'm not sure what their hardware setup is like.

Rincewind · 22nd July 2020, 06:33 AM

Originally Posted by Worm

In general, yes, absolutely.

This page suggests that you can go up to a max of 12GB.

Sometimes this is an easy task, sometimes less so. Never done a Lenovo so I'm not sure what their hardware setup is like.

Thanks for that.

Is it likely that my wild-ass guess is correct?

Worm · 22nd July 2020, 06:38 AM

I would have thought 6GB should be plenty, but as hardware gets older, it can start to creak. It may be worth checking if you need driver updates as that can often make a difference.

Childlike Empress · 22nd July 2020, 06:53 AM

I have four 2007 Lenovo computers, a desktop on which I'm writing right now and three Laptops. The Desktop has 6 GB of RAM, the Laptops have 4 and two-times 3 (all at maximum). The Desktop now uses 3.2 GB of RAM with a ton of browser tabs open and after more than six days uptime. The Laptops all run fine without problems. On Linux, of course.

Darat · 22nd July 2020, 06:57 AM

Originally Posted by Rincewind

Thanks for that.

Is it likely that my wild-ass guess is correct?

Wouldn't have thought so, generally being sluggish yes but not crashing. How is your hard disk configured? Is it all one partition and is there sufficient room for your swap file? I would suggest running a check on your HD before doing anything else.

theprestige · 22nd July 2020, 07:02 AM

Originally Posted by Rincewind

Is it likely that my wild-ass guess is correct? : )

No. Windows 10 requires 2GB of memory for its own use, leaving you 4 more to play with (minus some overhead for memory management). The operating system is not running around gobbling up more memory.

Leftus · 22nd July 2020, 07:09 AM

Originally Posted by Rincewind

Hi guys,

Recently there as a major Windows 10 upgrade on my laptop- plus a new version of Edge. Also a Winzip addition that helpful guys here helped me to disable!

Here's what my laptop says about itself:

Lenovo V310-141SK
Intel Core i3-6100U CPU
2.30 GHz
6.00 GB RAM (5.73 GB usable)

Prior to the W10 upgrade I had been having occasional 'freezes', where the machine stops, and I have to reboot. Typically, for instance, when I have several large excel spreadsheets open at the same time.

However, since the upgrade this is happening several times a day, so I'm assuming (a WAG, of course) that Billy Gates' stuff is taking up so much of the RAM that there's not really enough for me to play with.

My question is - is it likely to be feasible to replace the 6 GB Ram with 8, for instance, or maybe add another 6?

Thanking you in anticipation...

https://www.crucial.com/compatible-u...0-14isk#memory

Looks like you could replace it with a 16 GB stick and take it to 20. Sadly, it's not an easy upgrade, as the RAM does require opening it completely up, but, hey, gives you a chance to clean it out.

There is only one replaceable slot, with 4GB built into it.

I'm not totally sold on memory being your problem. I could be wrong, but full memory will cause disk thrashing as it moves everything to the pagefile. So, while it may hang, it will eventually resolve.

Trebuchet · 22nd July 2020, 07:46 AM

640k is enough for anyone!

Darat · 22nd July 2020, 07:54 AM

Originally Posted by Trebuchet

640k is enough for anyone!

Pah 512k is more than enough!

Trebuchet · 22nd July 2020, 09:16 AM

Originally Posted by Darat

Pah 512k is more than enough!

I wish they had said how much it cost when new! The story also mentioned GEM, about which I had almost forgotten. One of my companies bought a computer that had it installed, I quite liked it. You couldn't actually DO anything with it, but it seemed nice!

Mongrel · 22nd July 2020, 10:44 AM

You can open Task Manager (R-Click on the task bar and select it from there), select the Performance tab and then Memory on the left hand column.
Keeping this open will give you a rough overview of how much Memory you are using so if you've seen notable stuttering in certain applications it should reflect in the usage there. If it doesn't you probably have enough RAM.

Rincewind · 22nd July 2020, 04:32 PM

Thanks guys - a bunch of stuff to think about!

xterra · 22nd July 2020, 08:06 PM

If you decide you want more memory, then before you get too far into the project – like before you turn it over to look at the bottom – search for YouTube videos for replacing memory ON THAT MODEL of computer.

Then review your decision.

My new Lenovo Idea Pad laptop turns replacing the battery into major surgery. I the Acer that went defunct, and that the Lenovo replaced, it was not much worse than replacing the bulb in your living room lamp.

bruto · 22nd July 2020, 10:06 PM

I've been having intermittent update-related issues with my laptop and Win 10. It seems every update crams a bunch of junk into the thing, which then waits endlessly for things that aren't running to connect, and for me to update the settings on programs I don't even know I have.

I'd start by going to the Task Manager and disabling any startup items you obviously don't want. Check the services too (being careful not to disable needful stuff) and see if there's junk there. I never opened Skype in my life, but had nine instances of Skype service running at once.

Some things, like Skype, can just be uninstalled. Others, including some Xbox junk, are baked in, and require more effort.

There's more info on the web for disabling other stuff that can't be uninstalled normally, but every bit helps. Microsoft keeps putting Edge back in and defaulting all sorts of stuff to that.

I needed at some point to set up a separate administrator account, and found that a bunch of junk was set up there, and Edge was waiting for me to do stuff. Windows would take minutes to finish loading correctly, and programs would report "not responding," because Edge was waiting for me to enter stuff. So if you have more than one account, make sure you look at them all.

Every time I think I have it licked, it works great for a few days and then starts acting up again, and I find some new stupidity from Chairman Bill hiding somewhere gobbling up resources.

I may seriously have to look into how Linux can run some of the Windows specific programs I have, and if it does, maybe it's time.

e.t.a. in my case I don't think it's a RAM issue so much. Ram might help, but some of it is just Windows waiting for inputs that never happen. Eventually it gives up, and starts working again.

a_unique_person · 22nd July 2020, 11:22 PM

You tube videos. Great value for working on laptops.

Wudang · 23rd July 2020, 02:42 AM

Originally Posted by Mongrel

You can open Task Manager (R-Click on the task bar and select it from there), select the Performance tab and then Memory on the left hand column.
Keeping this open will give you a rough overview of how much Memory you are using so if you've seen notable stuttering in certain applications it should reflect in the usage there. If it doesn't you probably have enough RAM.

+1. Verify the problem before fixing it.

I'd suggest opening event viewer to look for problems but there as so many "just the usual errors" it can be a PITA.

Darat · 23rd July 2020, 02:45 AM

Originally Posted by Trebuchet

I wish they had said how much it cost when new! The story also mentioned GEM, about which I had almost forgotten. One of my companies bought a computer that had it installed, I quite liked it. You couldn't actually DO anything with it, but it seemed nice!

One of my very early part time jobs was selling the Amstrad range of clone PCs, quality control was to shake the box, if it didn't rattle it was fine.

Wudang · 23rd July 2020, 02:51 AM

Originally Posted by Darat

One of my very early part time jobs was selling the Amstrad range of clone PCs, quality control was to shake the box, if it didn't rattle it was fine.

Reminds me of the Atari STFM. One quick fix was to lift it about 6 inches and drop it to reseat components that were loose. I had the 520 and did a RAM upgrade on that. It also used GEM but I mainly used it for playing Eye of the Beholder etc.

Norman Alexander · 23rd July 2020, 03:39 AM

6GB should be plenty for a laptop with Win10. Intermittent crashing suggests possibly a RAM fault, if it is indeed RAM at all, or something weird about the system disk...

RAM may have intermittent faults that show up only when the blocks get used. So the system will start and run for a bit, but sooner or later memory usage expands and something hits the pothole and boom. Win10 uses more RAM, so it could hit the pothole sooner. There are usually extensive RAM tests in the BIOS and motherboard system management which are available at boot time. Try them.

My usual disk check go-to is to defrag. If the disk is good then this will take about 5 mins for a spinning HDD or a couple of seconds for an SSD. It helps keep the disk in reasonable trim, and is also a bit of a shakedown on the disk because this very occasionally uncovers faulty blocks. If it does find some, take whatever corrective measures you think necessary.

Darat · 23rd July 2020, 04:19 AM

Originally Posted by Wudang

Reminds me of the Atari STFM. One quick fix was to lift it about 6 inches and drop it to reseat components that were loose. I had the 520 and did a RAM upgrade on that. It also used GEM but I mainly used it for playing Eye of the Beholder etc.

Did you have the ones with socketed ram chips?

My business partner and I did a roaring trade in fixing the likes of Commodores (usually VIC chips burning out or a connection needing resoldering) and memory upgrades on a range of "home computers". We hated the STs for memory upgrades, I think it was the STFM that it was a toss up whether the additional memory bank would be socketed or not. If it was great - we just had to push in (if my recollection is correct) 16 RAM chips, otherwise we had to un-solder the holes for each RAM chip.

ETA:

Just went to look for details and found a video that brought it all back for me:

Wudang · 23rd July 2020, 05:40 AM

As I recall I had to remove the ram chip, insert the expansion thing in the socket then the ram chip back into that. The expansion unit then had a cable off to more ram than I had to squeeze in somewhere.

Darat · 23rd July 2020, 06:58 AM

Originally Posted by Wudang

As I recall I had to remove the ram chip, insert the expansion thing in the socket then the ram chip back into that. The expansion unit then had a cable off to more ram than I had to squeeze in somewhere.

Ah that sounds like one of the add-on boards that came later - they let you raise the memory to the max 4Mb!

JoeMorgue · 23rd July 2020, 07:09 AM

The computer community loves little more than to go back and laugh at "X computer is all you are going to need" predictions, but if you notice they aren't wrong in the way people think they are wrong. What a "computer" does and is expected to do changes.

64k probably is enough if all you're doing is... like calculations. Like math. Like computers first started out being used for.

512k probably is enough if you're just doing productivity software like word processing and databases.

Take "Multimedia" and "Gaming" out of the equation and some of those predictions get a lot less silly and if you mentally add on a "If we keep using computers as we are using them now for the tasks we are using them for now" onto a lot of these "X amounts of storage/memory/processor is all we will ever need!" statements they get a lot less worthy of being fed crow.

Darat · 23rd July 2020, 07:13 AM

Originally Posted by JoeMorgue

The computer community loves little more than to go back and laugh at "X computer is all you are going to need" predictions, but if you notice they aren't wrong in the way people think they are wrong. What a "computer" does and is expected to do changes.

64k probably is enough if all you're doing is... like calculations. Like math. Like computers first started out being used for. ...snip...

I think you mean 1k. Lots I could do with my ZX81 before I got the rampack!

Brainster · 23rd July 2020, 03:56 PM

Originally Posted by Trebuchet

I wish they had said how much it cost when new! The story also mentioned GEM, about which I had almost forgotten. One of my companies bought a computer that had it installed, I quite liked it. You couldn't actually DO anything with it, but it seemed nice!

I bought a similar computer in 1985/86 for about $3,000, but mine had a wide printer, so figure maybe $600 less. Memory 512K 10 Meg HDD. The one thing that seems odd about that Amstrad is the 3.5-inch floppy drive; I don't remember those being common until several years later. Mine had the dual 5.25-inch floppy drives.

Brainster · 23rd July 2020, 04:06 PM

Originally Posted by Darat

I think you mean 1k. Lots I could do with my ZX81 before I got the rampack!

All I can say is those things must have been a lot better in the UK than they were in the US. I can remember inputting like five lines of basic code and then suddenly seeing the lcd go blank. Over and over again. Sent it back.

Trebuchet · 23rd July 2020, 04:41 PM

Originally Posted by bruto

I've been having intermittent update-related issues with my laptop and Win 10. It seems every update crams a bunch of junk into the thing, which then waits endlessly for things that aren't running to connect, and for me to update the settings on programs I don't even know I have.

That's why I wasn't too unhappy when MS stopped updating Win7 on this old computer, about which you can see more in my thread.

Originally Posted by a_unique_person

You tube videos. Great value for working on laptops.

And espresso machines.
About 20 months ago, shortly after moving into the new house, we bought a magnificent, er DeLonghi Magnifica, espresso machine. Almost automatic. Add water, add beans, empty the used grounds, that's it. Except once in a while you need to descale and vacuum out the interior.
Ours was having a problem. The door would pop open when starting up or shutting down. Getting worse and worse. I cleaned the interior but it only helped a little. Finally Googled and watched a video. Oh, it's a little moving part ON the door! I hadn't looked there. No more problem after a quick removal of the buildup.
The machine, BTW, cost us over US$500.00 and has saved at least five or six THOUSAND dollars compared to the previous two Starbucks a day.

Mongrel · 24th July 2020, 04:45 AM

Originally Posted by JoeMorgue

Take "Multimedia" and "Gaming" out of the equation and some of those predictions get a lot less silly and if you mentally add on a "If we keep using computers as we are using them now for the tasks we are using them for now" onto a lot of these "X amounts of storage/memory/processor is all we will ever need!" statements they get a lot less worthy of being fed crow.

I think another one of the issues is that as technology and the 'normal' moves forward someone will always ask "What more can we do?".
I started gaming from 3.5" floppies and watched the amazing change when CD drives became cheap enough, now 50Gb installs are common. Same for all the underlying feature sets; 640x480 graphics, capricious hardware & primitive sound, now we have game engines that will happily play at 4k & better resolutions, 90% 'just plug it in' devices & 5.1 soundtracks.

It's also led to stuff getting messy & bloated, as there's no requirement for keeping things compact & efficient. Why bother when people have a 3GHz octo-core processor, 4Gb of RAM & a 1080 display on their phone?

Darat · 24th July 2020, 05:49 AM

Originally Posted by Brainster

I bought a similar computer in 1985/86 for about $3,000, but mine had a wide printer, so figure maybe $600 less. Memory 512K 10 Meg HDD. The one thing that seems odd about that Amstrad is the 3.5-inch floppy drive; I don't remember those being common until several years later. Mine had the dual 5.25-inch floppy drives.

I think you will find that was a Winchester drive!

Darat · 24th July 2020, 05:51 AM

Originally Posted by Brainster

All I can say is those things must have been a lot better in the UK than they were in the US. I can remember inputting like five lines of basic code and then suddenly seeing the lcd go blank. Over and over again. Sent it back.

What was that?

And because Sinclair and his clever mates were clever you could squeeze more than you might think into that 1k - such as a chess game

Rincewind · 24th July 2020, 08:00 AM

Originally Posted by bruto

I've been having intermittent update-related issues with my laptop and Win 10. It seems every update crams a bunch of junk into the thing, which then waits endlessly for things that aren't running to connect, and for me to update the settings on programs I don't even know I have.

I'd start by going to the Task Manager and disabling any startup items you obviously don't want. Check the services too (being careful not to disable needful stuff) and see if there's junk there. I never opened Skype in my life, but had nine instances of Skype service running at once.

Some things, like Skype, can just be uninstalled. Others, including some Xbox junk, are baked in, and require more effort.

There's more info on the web for disabling other stuff that can't be uninstalled normally, but every bit helps. Microsoft keeps putting Edge back in and defaulting all sorts of stuff to that.

I needed at some point to set up a separate administrator account, and found that a bunch of junk was set up there, and Edge was waiting for me to do stuff. Windows would take minutes to finish loading correctly, and programs would report "not responding," because Edge was waiting for me to enter stuff. So if you have more than one account, make sure you look at them all.

Every time I think I have it licked, it works great for a few days and then starts acting up again, and I find some new stupidity from Chairman Bill hiding somewhere gobbling up resources.

I may seriously have to look into how Linux can run some of the Windows specific programs I have, and if it does, maybe it's time.

e.t.a. in my case I don't think it's a RAM issue so much. Ram might help, but some of it is just Windows waiting for inputs that never happen. Eventually it gives up, and starts working again.

Thanks Bruto!

I regularly clean out autostart stuff - just like you I noticed that stuff creeps back!

So, I did it again.

It's not looking like a RAM issue now. Yesterday, I was playing a couple of games from Steam: Kingdoms and Castles, recommended 4GB, and Knights and Merchants, recommended 1GB.

So - I'm sure you guessed which one locked up twice?

There's a computer place not far from us, so I might have a chat with them.

Thanks again to all who contributed!

22nd July 2020, 06:18 AM	#1
Rincewind Philosopher Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Adirondacks, NY - with Magrat! Posts: 8,590	Laptop RAM question Hi guys, Recently there as a major Windows 10 upgrade on my laptop- plus a new version of Edge. Also a Winzip addition that helpful guys here helped me to disable! Here's what my laptop says about itself: Lenovo V310-141SK Intel Core i3-6100U CPU 2.30 GHz 6.00 GB RAM (5.73 GB usable) Prior to the W10 upgrade I had been having occasional 'freezes', where the machine stops, and I have to reboot. Typically, for instance, when I have several large excel spreadsheets open at the same time. However, since the upgrade this is happening several times a day, so I'm assuming (a WAG, of course) that Billy Gates' stuff is taking up so much of the RAM that there's not really enough for me to play with. My question is - is it likely to be feasible to replace the 6 GB Ram with 8, for instance, or maybe add another 6? Thanking you in anticipation...
	__________________ I used to think I was happy. then I met Magrat.

22nd July 2020, 06:30 AM	#2
Worm Illuminator Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Dundee Posts: 3,256	In general, yes, absolutely. This page suggests that you can go up to a max of 12GB. Sometimes this is an easy task, sometimes less so. Never done a Lenovo so I'm not sure what their hardware setup is like.
	__________________ "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" Isaac Asimov Not all cults are bad - I've joined a cult of niceness

22nd July 2020, 06:33 AM	#3
Rincewind Philosopher Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Adirondacks, NY - with Magrat! Posts: 8,590	Originally Posted by Worm In general, yes, absolutely. This page suggests that you can go up to a max of 12GB. Sometimes this is an easy task, sometimes less so. Never done a Lenovo so I'm not sure what their hardware setup is like. Thanks for that. Is it likely that my wild-ass guess is correct?
	__________________ I used to think I was happy. then I met Magrat.

22nd July 2020, 06:38 AM	#4
Worm Illuminator Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Dundee Posts: 3,256	I would have thought 6GB should be plenty, but as hardware gets older, it can start to creak. It may be worth checking if you need driver updates as that can often make a difference.
	__________________ "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" Isaac Asimov Not all cults are bad - I've joined a cult of niceness

22nd July 2020, 06:53 AM	#5
Childlike Empress Ewige Blumenkraft Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Ivory Tower Posts: 19,107	I have four 2007 Lenovo computers, a desktop on which I'm writing right now and three Laptops. The Desktop has 6 GB of RAM, the Laptops have 4 and two-times 3 (all at maximum). The Desktop now uses 3.2 GB of RAM with a ton of browser tabs open and after more than six days uptime. The Laptops all run fine without problems. On Linux, of course.
	__________________ If they want the pandemic to end, they just have to stop testing. Then people will die of the flu again, like they did before - Wolfgang Wodarg

22nd July 2020, 06:57 AM	#6
Darat Lackey Administrator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: South East, UK Posts: 97,914	Originally Posted by Rincewind Thanks for that. Is it likely that my wild-ass guess is correct? Wouldn't have thought so, generally being sluggish yes but not crashing. How is your hard disk configured? Is it all one partition and is there sufficient room for your swap file? I would suggest running a check on your HD before doing anything else.
	__________________ I wish I knew how to quit you

22nd July 2020, 07:02 AM	#7
theprestige Penultimate Amazing FLA Winner 12/20 Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Hong Kong Posts: 50,700	Originally Posted by Rincewind Is it likely that my wild-ass guess is correct? : ) No. Windows 10 requires 2GB of memory for its own use, leaving you 4 more to play with (minus some overhead for memory management). The operating system is not running around gobbling up more memory.

22nd July 2020, 07:09 AM	#8
Leftus Master Poster Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 2,483	Originally Posted by Rincewind Hi guys, Recently there as a major Windows 10 upgrade on my laptop- plus a new version of Edge. Also a Winzip addition that helpful guys here helped me to disable! Here's what my laptop says about itself: Lenovo V310-141SK Intel Core i3-6100U CPU 2.30 GHz 6.00 GB RAM (5.73 GB usable) Prior to the W10 upgrade I had been having occasional 'freezes', where the machine stops, and I have to reboot. Typically, for instance, when I have several large excel spreadsheets open at the same time. However, since the upgrade this is happening several times a day, so I'm assuming (a WAG, of course) that Billy Gates' stuff is taking up so much of the RAM that there's not really enough for me to play with. My question is - is it likely to be feasible to replace the 6 GB Ram with 8, for instance, or maybe add another 6? Thanking you in anticipation... https://www.crucial.com/compatible-u...0-14isk#memory Looks like you could replace it with a 16 GB stick and take it to 20. Sadly, it's not an easy upgrade, as the RAM does require opening it completely up, but, hey, gives you a chance to clean it out. There is only one replaceable slot, with 4GB built into it. I'm not totally sold on memory being your problem. I could be wrong, but full memory will cause disk thrashing as it moves everything to the pagefile. So, while it may hang, it will eventually resolve.
Leftus Master Poster Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 2,483

22nd July 2020, 07:46 AM	#9
Trebuchet Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Port Townsend, Washington Posts: 31,348	640k is enough for anyone!
	__________________ Cum catapultae proscribeantur tum soli proscripti catapultas habeant.

22nd July 2020, 07:54 AM	#10
Darat Lackey Administrator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: South East, UK Posts: 97,914	Originally Posted by Trebuchet 640k is enough for anyone! Pah 512k is more than enough!
	__________________ I wish I knew how to quit you

22nd July 2020, 09:16 AM	#11
Trebuchet Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Port Townsend, Washington Posts: 31,348	Originally Posted by Darat Pah 512k is more than enough! I wish they had said how much it cost when new! The story also mentioned GEM, about which I had almost forgotten. One of my companies bought a computer that had it installed, I quite liked it. You couldn't actually DO anything with it, but it seemed nice!
	__________________ Cum catapultae proscribeantur tum soli proscripti catapultas habeant.

22nd July 2020, 10:44 AM	#12
Mongrel Begging for Scraps Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: UK, suburbia. 20 minutes in the future Posts: 2,056	You can open Task Manager (R-Click on the task bar and select it from there), select the Performance tab and then Memory on the left hand column. Keeping this open will give you a rough overview of how much Memory you are using so if you've seen notable stuttering in certain applications it should reflect in the usage there. If it doesn't you probably have enough RAM.
	__________________ “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.” - Charles Darwin ...like so many contemporary philosophers he especially enjoyed giving helpful advice to people who were happier than he was. - Tom Lehrer

22nd July 2020, 04:32 PM	#13
Rincewind Philosopher Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Adirondacks, NY - with Magrat! Posts: 8,590	Thanks guys - a bunch of stuff to think about!
	__________________ I used to think I was happy. then I met Magrat.

22nd July 2020, 08:06 PM	#14
xterra So far, so good... Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: On the outskirts of Nowhere; the middle was too crowded Posts: 3,735	If you decide you want more memory, then before you get too far into the project – like before you turn it over to look at the bottom – search for YouTube videos for replacing memory ON THAT MODEL of computer. Then review your decision. My new Lenovo Idea Pad laptop turns replacing the battery into major surgery. I the Acer that went defunct, and that the Lenovo replaced, it was not much worse than replacing the bulb in your living room lamp.
	__________________ Over we go....

22nd July 2020, 10:06 PM	#15
bruto Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Way way north of Diddy Wah Diddy Posts: 28,344	I've been having intermittent update-related issues with my laptop and Win 10. It seems every update crams a bunch of junk into the thing, which then waits endlessly for things that aren't running to connect, and for me to update the settings on programs I don't even know I have. I'd start by going to the Task Manager and disabling any startup items you obviously don't want. Check the services too (being careful not to disable needful stuff) and see if there's junk there. I never opened Skype in my life, but had nine instances of Skype service running at once. Some things, like Skype, can just be uninstalled. Others, including some Xbox junk, are baked in, and require more effort. There's more info on the web for disabling other stuff that can't be uninstalled normally, but every bit helps. Microsoft keeps putting Edge back in and defaulting all sorts of stuff to that. I needed at some point to set up a separate administrator account, and found that a bunch of junk was set up there, and Edge was waiting for me to do stuff. Windows would take minutes to finish loading correctly, and programs would report "not responding," because Edge was waiting for me to enter stuff. So if you have more than one account, make sure you look at them all. Every time I think I have it licked, it works great for a few days and then starts acting up again, and I find some new stupidity from Chairman Bill hiding somewhere gobbling up resources. I may seriously have to look into how Linux can run some of the Windows specific programs I have, and if it does, maybe it's time. e.t.a. in my case I don't think it's a RAM issue so much. Ram might help, but some of it is just Windows waiting for inputs that never happen. Eventually it gives up, and starts working again.
	__________________ I love this world, but not for its answers. (Mary Oliver) Quand il dit "cuic" le moineau croit tout dire. (When he's tweeted the sparrow thinks he's said it all. (Jules Renard) Last edited by bruto; 22nd July 2020 at 10:09 PM.

22nd July 2020, 11:22 PM	#16
a_unique_person Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Waiting for the pod bay door to open. Posts: 43,093	You tube videos. Great value for working on laptops.
	__________________ *Continually pushing the boundaries of mediocrity.* Everything is possible, but not everything is probable. “Perception is real, but the truth is not.” - Imelda Marcos

23rd July 2020, 02:42 AM	#17
Wudang BOFH Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: People's Republic of South Yorkshire Posts: 13,595	Originally Posted by Mongrel You can open Task Manager (R-Click on the task bar and select it from there), select the Performance tab and then Memory on the left hand column. Keeping this open will give you a rough overview of how much Memory you are using so if you've seen notable stuttering in certain applications it should reflect in the usage there. If it doesn't you probably have enough RAM. +1. Verify the problem before fixing it. I'd suggest opening event viewer to look for problems but there as so many "just the usual errors" it can be a PITA.
	__________________ "Your deepest pools, like your deepest politicians and philosophers, often turn out more shallow than expected." Walter Scott.

23rd July 2020, 02:45 AM	#18
Darat Lackey Administrator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: South East, UK Posts: 97,914	Originally Posted by Trebuchet I wish they had said how much it cost when new! The story also mentioned GEM, about which I had almost forgotten. One of my companies bought a computer that had it installed, I quite liked it. You couldn't actually DO anything with it, but it seemed nice! One of my very early part time jobs was selling the Amstrad range of clone PCs, quality control was to shake the box, if it didn't rattle it was fine.
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23rd July 2020, 02:51 AM	#19
Wudang BOFH Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: People's Republic of South Yorkshire Posts: 13,595	Originally Posted by Darat One of my very early part time jobs was selling the Amstrad range of clone PCs, quality control was to shake the box, if it didn't rattle it was fine. Reminds me of the Atari STFM. One quick fix was to lift it about 6 inches and drop it to reseat components that were loose. I had the 520 and did a RAM upgrade on that. It also used GEM but I mainly used it for playing Eye of the Beholder etc.
	__________________ "Your deepest pools, like your deepest politicians and philosophers, often turn out more shallow than expected." Walter Scott. Last edited by Wudang; 23rd July 2020 at 02:53 AM.

23rd July 2020, 03:39 AM	#20
Norman Alexander Philosopher Join Date: Nov 2014 Location: Gundungurra Posts: 9,224	6GB should be plenty for a laptop with Win10. Intermittent crashing suggests possibly a RAM fault, if it is indeed RAM at all, or something weird about the system disk... RAM may have intermittent faults that show up only when the blocks get used. So the system will start and run for a bit, but sooner or later memory usage expands and something hits the pothole and boom. Win10 uses more RAM, so it could hit the pothole sooner. There are usually extensive RAM tests in the BIOS and motherboard system management which are available at boot time. Try them. My usual disk check go-to is to defrag. If the disk is good then this will take about 5 mins for a spinning HDD or a couple of seconds for an SSD. It helps keep the disk in reasonable trim, and is also a bit of a shakedown on the disk because this very occasionally uncovers faulty blocks. If it does find some, take whatever corrective measures you think necessary.
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23rd July 2020, 04:19 AM	#21
Darat Lackey Administrator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: South East, UK Posts: 97,914	Originally Posted by Wudang Reminds me of the Atari STFM. One quick fix was to lift it about 6 inches and drop it to reseat components that were loose. I had the 520 and did a RAM upgrade on that. It also used GEM but I mainly used it for playing Eye of the Beholder etc. Did you have the ones with socketed ram chips? My business partner and I did a roaring trade in fixing the likes of Commodores (usually VIC chips burning out or a connection needing resoldering) and memory upgrades on a range of "home computers". We hated the STs for memory upgrades, I think it was the STFM that it was a toss up whether the additional memory bank would be socketed or not. If it was great - we just had to push in (if my recollection is correct) 16 RAM chips, otherwise we had to un-solder the holes for each RAM chip. ETA: Just went to look for details and found a video that brought it all back for me:
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23rd July 2020, 05:40 AM	#22
Wudang BOFH Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: People's Republic of South Yorkshire Posts: 13,595	As I recall I had to remove the ram chip, insert the expansion thing in the socket then the ram chip back into that. The expansion unit then had a cable off to more ram than I had to squeeze in somewhere.
	__________________ "Your deepest pools, like your deepest politicians and philosophers, often turn out more shallow than expected." Walter Scott.

23rd July 2020, 06:58 AM	#23
Darat Lackey Administrator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: South East, UK Posts: 97,914	Originally Posted by Wudang As I recall I had to remove the ram chip, insert the expansion thing in the socket then the ram chip back into that. The expansion unit then had a cable off to more ram than I had to squeeze in somewhere. Ah that sounds like one of the add-on boards that came later - they let you raise the memory to the max 4Mb!
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23rd July 2020, 07:09 AM	#24
JoeMorgue Self Employed Remittance Man Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Florida Posts: 31,715	The computer community loves little more than to go back and laugh at "X computer is all you are going to need" predictions, but if you notice they aren't wrong in the way people think they are wrong. What a "computer" does and is expected to do changes. 64k probably is enough if all you're doing is... like calculations. Like math. Like computers first started out being used for. 512k probably is enough if you're just doing productivity software like word processing and databases. Take "Multimedia" and "Gaming" out of the equation and some of those predictions get a lot less silly and if you mentally add on a "If we keep using computers as we are using them now for the tasks we are using them for now" onto a lot of these "X amounts of storage/memory/processor is all we will ever need!" statements they get a lot less worthy of being fed crow.
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23rd July 2020, 07:13 AM	#25
Darat Lackey Administrator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: South East, UK Posts: 97,914	Originally Posted by JoeMorgue The computer community loves little more than to go back and laugh at "X computer is all you are going to need" predictions, but if you notice they aren't wrong in the way people think they are wrong. What a "computer" does and is expected to do changes. 64k probably is enough if all you're doing is... like calculations. Like math. Like computers first started out being used for. ...snip... I think you mean 1k. Lots I could do with my ZX81 before I got the rampack!
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23rd July 2020, 03:56 PM	#26
Brainster Penultimate Amazing Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 18,358	Originally Posted by Trebuchet I wish they had said how much it cost when new! The story also mentioned GEM, about which I had almost forgotten. One of my companies bought a computer that had it installed, I quite liked it. You couldn't actually DO anything with it, but it seemed nice! I bought a similar computer in 1985/86 for about $3,000, but mine had a wide printer, so figure maybe $600 less. Memory 512K 10 Meg HDD. The one thing that seems odd about that Amstrad is the 3.5-inch floppy drive; I don't remember those being common until several years later. Mine had the dual 5.25-inch floppy drives.
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23rd July 2020, 04:06 PM	#27
Brainster Penultimate Amazing Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 18,358	Originally Posted by Darat I think you mean 1k. Lots I could do with my ZX81 before I got the rampack! All I can say is those things must have been a lot better in the UK than they were in the US. I can remember inputting like five lines of basic code and then suddenly seeing the lcd go blank. Over and over again. Sent it back.
	__________________ My new blog: Recent Reads. 1960s Comic Book Nostalgia Visit the Screw Loose Change blog.

23rd July 2020, 04:41 PM	#28
Trebuchet Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Port Townsend, Washington Posts: 31,348	Originally Posted by bruto I've been having intermittent update-related issues with my laptop and Win 10. It seems every update crams a bunch of junk into the thing, which then waits endlessly for things that aren't running to connect, and for me to update the settings on programs I don't even know I have. That's why I wasn't too unhappy when MS stopped updating Win7 on this old computer, about which you can see more in my thread. Originally Posted by a_unique_person You tube videos. Great value for working on laptops. And espresso machines. About 20 months ago, shortly after moving into the new house, we bought a magnificent, er DeLonghi Magnifica, espresso machine. Almost automatic. Add water, add beans, empty the used grounds, that's it. Except once in a while you need to descale and vacuum out the interior. Ours was having a problem. The door would pop open when starting up or shutting down. Getting worse and worse. I cleaned the interior but it only helped a little. Finally Googled and watched a video. Oh, it's a little moving part ON the door! I hadn't looked there. No more problem after a quick removal of the buildup. The machine, BTW, cost us over US$500.00 and has saved at least five or six THOUSAND dollars compared to the previous two Starbucks a day.
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24th July 2020, 04:45 AM	#29
Mongrel Begging for Scraps Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: UK, suburbia. 20 minutes in the future Posts: 2,056	Originally Posted by JoeMorgue Take "Multimedia" and "Gaming" out of the equation and some of those predictions get a lot less silly and if you mentally add on a "If we keep using computers as we are using them now for the tasks we are using them for now" onto a lot of these "X amounts of storage/memory/processor is all we will ever need!" statements they get a lot less worthy of being fed crow. I think another one of the issues is that as technology and the 'normal' moves forward someone will always ask "What more can we do?". I started gaming from 3.5" floppies and watched the amazing change when CD drives became cheap enough, now 50Gb installs are common. Same for all the underlying feature sets; 640x480 graphics, capricious hardware & primitive sound, now we have game engines that will happily play at 4k & better resolutions, 90% 'just plug it in' devices & 5.1 soundtracks. It's also led to stuff getting messy & bloated, as there's no requirement for keeping things compact & efficient. Why bother when people have a 3GHz octo-core processor, 4Gb of RAM & a 1080 display on their phone?
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24th July 2020, 05:49 AM	#30
Darat Lackey Administrator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: South East, UK Posts: 97,914	Originally Posted by Brainster I bought a similar computer in 1985/86 for about $3,000, but mine had a wide printer, so figure maybe $600 less. Memory 512K 10 Meg HDD. The one thing that seems odd about that Amstrad is the 3.5-inch floppy drive; I don't remember those being common until several years later. Mine had the dual 5.25-inch floppy drives. I think you will find that was a Winchester drive!
	__________________ I wish I knew how to quit you Last edited by Darat; 24th July 2020 at 05:53 AM. Reason: a bit of free will

24th July 2020, 05:51 AM	#31
Darat Lackey Administrator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: South East, UK Posts: 97,914	Originally Posted by Brainster All I can say is those things must have been a lot better in the UK than they were in the US. I can remember inputting like five lines of basic code and then suddenly seeing the lcd go blank. Over and over again. Sent it back. What was that? And because Sinclair and his clever mates were clever you could squeeze more than you might think into that 1k - such as a chess game
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24th July 2020, 08:00 AM	#32
Rincewind Philosopher Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Adirondacks, NY - with Magrat! Posts: 8,590	Originally Posted by bruto I've been having intermittent update-related issues with my laptop and Win 10. It seems every update crams a bunch of junk into the thing, which then waits endlessly for things that aren't running to connect, and for me to update the settings on programs I don't even know I have. I'd start by going to the Task Manager and disabling any startup items you obviously don't want. Check the services too (being careful not to disable needful stuff) and see if there's junk there. I never opened Skype in my life, but had nine instances of Skype service running at once. Some things, like Skype, can just be uninstalled. Others, including some Xbox junk, are baked in, and require more effort. There's more info on the web for disabling other stuff that can't be uninstalled normally, but every bit helps. Microsoft keeps putting Edge back in and defaulting all sorts of stuff to that. I needed at some point to set up a separate administrator account, and found that a bunch of junk was set up there, and Edge was waiting for me to do stuff. Windows would take minutes to finish loading correctly, and programs would report "not responding," because Edge was waiting for me to enter stuff. So if you have more than one account, make sure you look at them all. Every time I think I have it licked, it works great for a few days and then starts acting up again, and I find some new stupidity from Chairman Bill hiding somewhere gobbling up resources. I may seriously have to look into how Linux can run some of the Windows specific programs I have, and if it does, maybe it's time. e.t.a. in my case I don't think it's a RAM issue so much. Ram might help, but some of it is just Windows waiting for inputs that never happen. Eventually it gives up, and starts working again. Thanks Bruto! I regularly clean out autostart stuff - just like you I noticed that stuff creeps back! So, I did it again. It's not looking like a RAM issue now. Yesterday, I was playing a couple of games from Steam: Kingdoms and Castles, recommended 4GB, and Knights and Merchants, recommended 1GB. So - I'm sure you guessed which one locked up twice? There's a computer place not far from us, so I might have a chat with them. Thanks again to all who contributed!
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