# Those USB "disks" and RAM **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 24, 2009, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-usb-disks-and-ram/504094 "2009-07-24T07:20:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Myglaren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Myglaren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myglaren)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2009, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-usb-disks-and-ram/504094/21 "2009-07-26T13:56:09Z")
First thing is to see how many modules are installed and how many empty slots there are. The crucial tool will work without IE - I always use Firefox. You need to install a small tool to do it, takes a few seconds to download and install, then it will open a Firefox page with your options on it. You don’t HAVE to buy from crucial if there is a cheaper source but as has been said above, it probably isn’t worth the bother and expense. Check how much space you can clear on your hard drive, remove anything you don’t need. Install CCleaner ([Filehippo.com](http://Filehippo.com)) and run it, also run the registry cleaner, defragment and you will likely find a significant improvement. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-usb-disks-and-ram/504094/22 "2009-08-05T06:06:28Z")
> [@Kinthalis](#): > > I’ll second **Bad Astronaut’s** advice here **Dougie Monty**. > > Just take a look at the price markup on the outdated type of RAM you need. The same amount of modern RAM is $20 and you’d have to pay $160 to get the same amount. It’s ridiculous. That’s 700% more money. > > I would seriously consider saving that cash, and when you have a few hundred saved up, buy a new PC. We’d be happy to help you out once you have a budget, in picking out something that will last you and will do anything you need it to do. Oh, would you actually do that? I have some money saved up; but how much money are you talking about—from your side of the matter? ---
**Author:** ![Xaidin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/ecd19e/32.png) [@Xaidin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xaidin)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-usb-disks-and-ram/504094/23 "2009-08-05T08:09:08Z")
I agree it’s time for a new computer. The nice term I use for my customers is “your machine has reached its end of life” I guess before I give my two cents I should mention I own a computer shop and deal with your situation every day. The thing about new computers. EVERYONE has an opinion. My opinion on what brand/speed/type etc to buy will vary wildly from the next poster. The problem is we can both be right. That said, don’t buy the cheapest computer. Those super cheap ($399) HP, Dell, Compaq, and acer computers tend to ummm… we’ll lets just say I see a lot of dead ones. The warranties are often a real PITA to deal with you if have trouble too. What do you buy then? As you don’t need a high end business class machine. I’d look at the consumer lenovo’s like the G530, and some of the Asus laptops. I’d also recommend getting something with windows XP on it. The catch is most non business class laptops (under $700) don’t offer an XP option, so for right now you’re stuck with Vista. I hate to recommend specific places to buy stuff on here so MP me if you want some options, but in your case do a Google search for a Lenovo G530. This Part Number has the XP option: 444625U Even the cheapest one will be several orders of magnitude better than what you have now. So that’s my two cents. Feel free to ask any other questions. Including the one where you need to know how to move your pics from the old computer to the new. =) Xaidin ---
**Author:** ![spinky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@spinky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spinky)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-usb-disks-and-ram/504094/24 "2009-08-05T09:03:55Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > > [@Goosey](#): > > > > Linux creates its own swap partition that is solely for virtual memory, and won’t use any other disk space for it. > > This used to be true. [However, you can create a swap file in an existing partition and it will be (since the 2.6 kernel series) just as fast as a swap partition.](http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/5/29/3) Technically, it was never true. You’ve always\* been able to use a swapfile, but you’re right that there was a slight performance penalty for it versus a swap partition. - “always” might be a bit of an overstatement. I know this functionality existed in 1.2 kernels back in the mid-90’s, but I can’t vouch for kernels before that. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-usb-disks-and-ram/504094/25 "2009-08-05T09:50:46Z")
> [@dougie\_monty](#): > > Oh, would you actually do that? I have some money saved up; but how much money are you talking about—from your side of the matter? You can get some really decent laptops in the $500 - $700 range (and even less if you have a strict budget) these days. Anything more would probably be overkill for you. You can buy them from lots of places including online but you may want to take a look at them in person at a store like Best Buy to get a feel for what you like even if you don’t buy one there. Almost all modern laptops have the basic functionality that you would need but it comes down to your preferences on screen size, keyboard etc. ---
**Author:** ![MagicXylophone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@MagicXylophone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MagicXylophone)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-usb-disks-and-ram/504094/26 "2009-08-05T13:22:20Z")
> [@Bad\_Astronaut](#): > > [Here](http://www.hardwarecentral.com/hardwarecentral/reviews/article.php/927071)is a review from 2001, making it at least 8 years old. Personal computers started to become popular in around 1975, 34 years ago. That means the Dell Inspiron 4100 has been around for almost 25% of the time that there has been computers. **For comparison, the planet Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. Would you consider an organism that had lived on the Earth for one billion years to be ancient?** > > As mentioned, 1GB of RAM for your Dell (SDRAM) costs $160. You can buy 1GB of RAM for a modern laptop (DDR2) for under $20. Spending money on obsolete technology is a waste unless you are some kind of technology historian 🙂 > > In seriousness, unless you are only running applications made prior to about 2003 you desperately need a new computer. Bolding mine. I really like this analogy, although I’m not entirely sure if it holds - punctuated equilibrium notwithstanding, does evolution generally follow the type of growth/change that personal computers do? It’s my impression that it’s a sort of exponential curve (processing power, that is) - the same couldn’t be said of evolutionary change, could it? ---
**Author:** ![crazyjoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f14d63/32.png) [@crazyjoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crazyjoe)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-usb-disks-and-ram/504094/27 "2009-08-05T17:05:33Z")
> [@dougie\_monty](#): > > Oh, would you actually do that? I have some money saved up; but how much money are you talking about—from your side of the matter? The biggest problem you are likely to experience moving from a computer in that age range is software that no longer functions really well on a more recent OS. If you list for us te programs you use most, we can probably figure out what you would need from your new notebook in irder to make things as painless as possible for you. Nothing is more frustrating than opening your new laptop and looking for an ancient piece of software that is no longer on the market. Worse yet is going to get your old floppy disks to try to load it only to find out that they don’t include floppy disk drives with notebooks anymore. Let us know what you use, and we’ll be happy to help out. ---
**Author:** ![BrandonR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@BrandonR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrandonR)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-usb-disks-and-ram/504094/28 "2009-08-05T17:32:21Z")
Every computer hits a point in its life cycle where it’ll end up being so costly to upgrade various components that it’d essentially be easier and cheaper to just buy a new laptop. Any computer that has 256 MB of RAM immediately meets this criterion. This is enhanced by the fact that prices for laptops have really gone down. If you just want a computer to do basic internet browsing and office applications, you can get one at prices starting at about $380 from Dell. I’d recommend against the Mini ‘netbooks’ you’re starting to see everywhere if you ever plan on doing more than just web browsing or using the most basic of programs… They weren’t built for that and when people do end up installing a bunch of stuff on them they wonder why their computer is so slow. ---
**Author:** ![Bad\_Astronaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Bad\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bad_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-usb-disks-and-ram/504094/29 "2009-08-05T20:02:37Z")
> [@MagicXylophone](#): > > Bolding mine. > > I really like this analogy, although I’m not entirely sure if it holds - punctuated equilibrium notwithstanding, does evolution generally follow the type of growth/change that personal computers do? It’s my impression that it’s a sort of exponential curve (processing power, that is) - the same couldn’t be said of evolutionary change, could it? Evolutionary change does appear to have an exponential characteristic - just check out the [timeline](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_evolution#Basic_timeline) on Wikipedia. It took almost 3 billion years to move from single-celled organisms to multi-cellular ones (the slow end of the curve) whereas the time it took for simple mammals to evolve into humans was less than 200 million years (the fast part of the curve). Probably for a fair comparison I should have started before 1975 when computers became popular, since I used the total age of the earth. Maybe 1946 when the ENIAC was invented. Of course it \*was \*just supposed to be a joke 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-usb-disks-and-ram/504094.md?page=1)