Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I recently bought an old Samsung laptop that was retired from an office environment. It has 8 GB and is blazing fast! I had no idea that RAM alone would make such a difference. It's like going from dial up to DSL!
The only downside is that it has Windows 7. That is a great OS but is less secure, and my beloved Brave browser will not go on it. I hate everything after 7 w/ a passion, and would sooner give the laptop away than run 10 or above. Fortunately, I found out that Brave is available now for Linux, so that will be my next upgrade.
But if anyone wants an inexpensive way to get a speedier computer, just upgrade your RAM if its possible. All this time I was blaming Xfinity for my slow internet, when it really was the computer itself. The first laptop replacement I bought last week had only 2 GB RAM, and that is not nearly enough. It was very, very slow to do almost anything.
My laptop became much faster after I replaced the SSD and updated it from Windows 7 to Windows 8.1. The reason I replaced the SSD was so that if the upgrade failed, I could just reinstall the old SSD. I suspect the increase in speed was because I did not install any of the bloatware that it originally came with, not because of the change in operating system.
You always need to identify the problem or the bottleneck. There is no generic, broad stroke fix for every old/older machine.
For example, 2GB RAM is OK for Windows 7 and 4GB would be the max but for Windows 10, it would crawl with 2GB RAM, 4GB would be much better but still lacking so 8GB with Windows 10 would be the minimum, imo.
If the laptop had 2GB RAM and Windows 7 and you upgraded that machine to Windows 10 without upgrading the RAM, then that is a mistake. It would actually seemingly run smaller than Windows 7 ever did on that machine. You could upgrade the HDD to SSD and it would most certainly improve performance but with only 2GB RAM, it would still be very much limited.
You have to make a list of the specs of core components, then considering the overall design/build quality of the machine and its age, you carefully think what kind of an upgrade would make financial sense to you.
I sincerely doubt it is JUST the RAM that makes it seem SO MUCH faster to you. This is not something I would tell someone.
"Your computer is slow? Just add RAM".
That may help in some circumstances...but not most.
People love buying these 10+ year old laptops for some reason. Seriously, when was the last time anyone heard of a laptop with 2 gigs of RAM. Thing had to be ancient. An yup, just adding RAM and and SSD on an ancient laptop is certainly going to make it run at least better. A better idea? Don't buy a 10 year-old laptop.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
