Budget Laptop

[Dagfinnur Traustason]

3 minutes ago, lopburi3 said:

That is not what we have been talking about - increasing the speed of a 4-5 year old computer is the goal and the SSD will do a very good job of that by itself.

When did I say that? I was quoting another post the included vague information about that. The ssd will do a good job, as I already have posted, but you will get a better computer by upgrading the ram as well. Are you going to oppose that?

OP said a budget on 15k baht. If he pays 1500 or 2500 instead of that, is probaly not important as long as he get the best possible result.

[Eindhoven]

12 minutes ago, Dagfinnur Traustason said:

When did I say that? I was quoting another post the included vague information about that. The ssd will do a good job, as I already have posted, but you will get a better computer by upgrading the ram as well. Are you going to oppose that?

OP said a budget on 15k baht. If he pays 1500 or 2500 instead of that, is probaly not important as long as he get the best possible result.

 

 

 

 

It's clear that we are discussing the upgrading of a laptop, not the buying of a laptop with 8 GB or more RAM.

 

Either way, I posted a VIDEO showing the effects of adding RAM and fitting an SSD to show the differences.

Clearly you didn't click to play the video and only viewed a still picture of the video stuck at a certain point of time.  Embarrassing for you, no?

[Eindhoven]

16 minutes ago, Dagfinnur Traustason said:

If you wish to keep the installation you already have on your computer, you will do best with a ssd with same size. Then you can for example use Easeus software to clone your system. By that you will not lose anyting you have on your old drive, and the computer will look exactly like before.

If you plan to make a new installation you can do with a 128gb or a 256gb ssd drive, depending on how much space you will need for downloads and files.

 

 Sorry, but you really should not be giving advice so authoritatively if you don't know your subject.

[Eindhoven]

3 minutes ago, Dagfinnur Traustason said:

Yes, with experience of using and reparing computers for about 25 years, I think I should do that. How about you?

 

Do I need to tell you how many? It's clear that I know of what I write. So it matters not if I have been doing this for even one week.

[CharlieH]

Some posts edited to remove inflammatory content, other bickering flame exchanges removed completely.

 

If you cannot remain civil and cut the "barbs" the topic will be closed OR you will be removed.

[jaiyenyen]

Everyone's input and advice is appreciated by me. It's enabled me to come to a decision to upgrade rather than replace my existing laptop. In an ideal world, and if funds were not so tight, I'd have the luxury of buying new. 

With regard to upgrading, your different opinions have given me food for thought. I'll probably visit Zeer IT Mall, Rangsit tomorrow and wander around checking out the prices (Tyre Kicking lol). Hopefully get it sorted before the end of the month and report back to let you know what happened.

The last thing I want is any upset between members.

[jaiyenyen]

So, yesterday morning I took my Lenovo ideapad 320 to the Advice store at Zeer, Rangsit. After the sales staff had picked themselves up from the floor and stopped laughing at my pathetic laptop with the AMD A4 processor (They found that particularly amusing) we decided upon upgrading to a Kingston 480GB SSD and 8GB of Kingston RAM. I tried to buy Adata brand but that was out of stock.

The SSD and RAM came to 3000 baht and I paid another 600 baht for it to be fitted and have everything changed to the new SSD.

I used my laptop yesterday, and I'm in my office, working with it now. There appear to be no issues. I've also just ordered a case for the old HHD so I can still use that externally.

Using my Lenovo is a pleasure again. Speed has improved markedly. The only thing holding it back now, is me 555.

Edited February 22, 2021 by jaiyenyen

[petermik]

On 2/20/2021 at 1:40 PM, jaiyenyen said:

I really appreciate all your advice guys.

At the moment, I have 4gb Ram and a 500gb HHD. I'm really happy to know that an upgrade to a SSD will make a difference. I'll probably upgrade the RAM too as it's not too much money.

My Ideapad 320 got upgraded by myself last year...a Samsung SSD 860 Evo 250 gb was purchased from Lazada and I cloned my OP system....easy to do and it has made the world of difference...go for it but pay a bit more for a Samsung SSD

[Eindhoven]

6 hours ago, jaiyenyen said:

So, yesterday morning I took my Lenovo ideapad 320 to the Advice store at Zeer, Rangsit. After the sales staff had picked themselves up from the floor and stopped laughing at my pathetic laptop with the AMD A4 processor (They found that particularly amusing) we decided upon upgrading to a Kingston 480GB SSD and 8GB of Kingston RAM. I tried to buy Adata brand but that was out of stock.

The SSD and RAM came to 3000 baht and I paid another 600 baht for it to be fitted and have everything changed to the new SSD.

I used my laptop yesterday, and I'm in my office, working with it now. There appear to be no issues. I've also just ordered a case for the old HHD so I can still use that externally.

Using my Lenovo is a pleasure again. Speed has improved markedly. The only thing holding it back now, is me 555.

 

Laptop is fine if it does what you need. You don't need to impress anyone. Spend what you can afford. Certainly a better spec than the one that I am using.

[KeeTua]

When someone would complain about a slow computer to me the very first thing I would do every single time is open Task Manager. More times than not the problem is clearly apparent there, either a program or multiple programs using too much processor continuously and/or too much memory in use and/or not enough memory installed. Sort by the columns in Task Manager to determine the culprit(s).

 

If the problem isn't made obvious in Task Manager, which is rarely the case, then I dig a little deeper into the specs of the computer, check disk free space and Event Viewer. I've seldom had to do much more than uninstall offending programs or up the memory.

 

Even though the OP has already done upgrades it doesn't mean the original problem causing slowness has been fixed. He should give Task Manger a look for the heck of it if he hasn't already.

 

I'm with the postors who suggest at least 8GB of memory. Hard to go wrong there.

[Eindhoven]

1 hour ago, KeeTua said:

When someone would complain about a slow computer to me the very first thing I would do every single time is open Task Manager. More times than not the problem is clearly apparent there, either a program or multiple programs using too much processor continuously and/or too much memory in use and/or not enough memory installed. Sort by the columns in Task Manager to determine the culprit(s).

 

If the problem isn't made obvious in Task Manager, which is rarely the case, then I dig a little deeper into the specs of the computer, check disk free space and Event Viewer. I've seldom had to do much more than uninstall offending programs or up the memory.

 

Even though the OP has already done upgrades it doesn't mean the original problem causing slowness has been fixed. He should give Task Manger a look for the heck of it if he hasn't already.

 

I'm with the postors who suggest at least 8GB of memory. Hard to go wrong there.

 

Nice that you have joined a side. I'm with those who say that 4GB is often enough in conjunction with a quality SSD.

But then I don't have loads of bloat and unnecessary programs running.

One can bang on about 8GB as much as one likes, but there are many of us running Windows 10 on 4 GB of RAM with no issues.

 

What the posters actually suggested is that when you buy a new laptop, don't buy one with less than 8GB. I would agree with that, dependent on the budget. If the budget allows for 8 GB, then buy 8 GB.

I would buy one with 16 GB if the price was right. But to suggest that everyone needs at least 8 GB is just ridiculous.

 

 

 

8GB is largely unnecessary. People who complain about slow devices are almost inevitably using old spinning disk storage.

How many people have you seen complaining about slow PCs when they are running with solid state drives.

I can guarantee that 90% of the people viewing this thread, have no interest in digging down within the Event Viewer.

 

RAM these days is almost never the bottleneck. The bottleneck is usually the storage method. More RAM is nice to have and of course more RAM is better than less RAM,  but most of us don't need it.

[Eindhoven]

One of the reasons why people still bang on about more RAM hails from the days where people still used HDD. So one had to wait for the slow HDD to load programs into RAM. With SSD the load to RAM is much faster, as are the swaps. So everything feels and is much faster. More RAM just makes it that little bit quicker and might make some swaps unnecessary. But the average user doesn't care about that.

So buy RAM if you can afford it but the storage method is more important to the average user.

I purposely avoid any jargon as most of the users want simple explanations they can understand.

 

Jaiyenyen would not notice a difference if he put his 4GB of RAM back in unless he started doing some serious multitasking.

 

I currently have 90 tabs open on Opera browser and that is with a fourteen year old laptop. Whilst they are open I am also using the laptop as an entertainment centre. AMD TL-60 Windows 10 Pro 4 GB of RAM. I don't need 8 GB.

 

The people who need 8GB of RAM need 8GB of RAM. That doesn't mean that everyone needs it.