I bought one with 248MB of RAM two Christmases ago for our then HS age daughter.
Last Christmas the wife got one with 480 MB of RAM
Now the low end $499 model appears to have 1GB of RAM.
Daughter is now in college and her computer is too slow/full. She has it so loaded with music and pictures that she can’t even run utilities to make it a little better.
Question… how can I convince her that the low end model with four times the RAM is going to be enough for her.
It sounds more like her problem could be solved by the addition of some external storage - one of those USB powered external drives - move the photos and music onto that.
If it’s considerably slower now than it was when it was new, the problem might not entirely be lack of hard drive space or shortage of RAM - it may be infected with malware.
That was my first thought too, but after seeing that the RAM is only 25% of what the low end Dells have now, I figured I’d get her a new one. I’ll be able to delete most of her files and utilize her old one.
She uses Itunes… is that a memory hog?
Perhaps there might also be a few of those terribly useful programmes that you are quite sure you need, you never use, but end up in the system tray at start up anyway.
A 2 year old Dell is still a decent machine. Whether or not you take possession of the computer, look into upgrading it to 1GB . Memory is cheap, and 256MB is not really adequate, IMHO. Don’t buy Dell memory. Look into Crucial or NewEgg for aggressively priced but high quality RAM. I second the USB drive. You can get a 500GB drive for not much more than $100.
The problem is far more likely to be software-related, probably spyware. Simply having a high disk utilization will not slow down the computer unless there’s so little room left (<2-3x RAM, so ~1.5 GB for a system with 512 MB RAM) for the virtual memory page file.
Agreed, except that a very full disk is also likely to be a highly-fragmented one - not because of any immutable law of computing or anything, it just often happens to be the case.
If the disk is so desperately full as to limit performance, there are usually warning messages saying so.
If the low end model with 1GB of RAM is running Windows Vista, it will run like a dog, even if you disable the snappy graphics features. Vista needs 2GB minimum to run well.
I’m guessing her slow performance is mostly a combination of iTunes being a huge resource hog on Windows (especially with a large database, i.e. many songs) and Windows having a bloated registry from installing programs and utilities over the past couple of years. The problem will be much worse if she has any spyware on the system. Reinstalling Windows from scratch will help a lot, as will using a non-iTunes program for her music (I’ve heard Anapod Explorer and EphPod are good). More memory will also help, and you can install it yourself for a fraction of the cost of buying it from Dell (let alone buying a new laptop).
To recap all of the good advice everyone has stated here…
You do not need to buy her a new computer - low end or not
Computers really shouldn’t be disposable items. You just need to keep up with maintenance every so often. Buying a new laptop after 2 years because it’s “slow” is akin to buying a new car after 2 years because you’ve never washed it, cleaned out the inside or gotten an oil change.
More RAM, and a fresh re-install will make this machine better than it was 2 years ago, obviously.
I don’t think the laptop in question can be upgraded. Unfortunately I don’t have it in front of me.
Sure it can. The RAM can be replaced and you can even install a larger HD if you want to. Submit the model number here and someone has probably worked on one or can find a site that has step by step for doing want you need to do to it.
It’s a Dell Inspiron B130
It looks to me like it has two memory slots and can support 2GB. Here is Crucial’s website which shows a 2GB upgrade for $52.00. You will not go wrong with Crucial memory. You can also download their memory utility which will examine your machine and tell you what your upgrade options are.
IME this sort of thing is more often the cause of Windows PCs slowing down than actual malware. You buy an HP printer, for example, an install whatever the CD prompts you to, and you end up with loads of unnecessary things running all the time. Little utilities to check whether there is a new version of the software, etc. Quite often, you can disable all of it and just retain the printer driver. Lots of hardware and software comes with little (sometimes not so little) “helpful” utilities like this, that the manufacturer can’t believe anyone would not want to use.
Antivirus software is another - they’ll do things like a full virus scan at boot-up, which can bog the PC down for quite a while. If you must do scheduled virus scans, schedule them for a more convenient time.
Msconfig or one of the freebie startup management utilities are good for controlling this kind of cruft.