4GB DDR3 not enough

[VirtualLarry]

Web browser was having strange pauses. Some of that might have been a software issue, but then my internet radio kept skipping when I was scrolling pages in the web browser. (I do have hardware acceleration enabled.)

So I upgraded this PC to 8GB of DDR3-1333. (It's a G630 CPU, which may not even be able to use 1333.)

I was often within 300MB of so of 4GB, which means that I was probably swapping. Even with an SSD, that tends to lock things up a bit. Possibly more so because I'm using FDE, which means that the disk I/O uses CPU as well.

 

[tweakboy]

Ram is soo low priced now you can get a 8GB kit for 40 dollars. Yeah 4GB is not enough at time. Especially if you have a lot of things loaded into memory. Then it also has to keep a cache ; eating away memory for cache. Some points 8GB is not enough, depends what you do. For gaming and other desktop stuff 8GB will do nicely. Or return the RAM you got and buy a 8GB 2x4GB for about 40 dollars. gl

 

[DominionSeraph]

Over half my 2GB is free. Perhaps you should upgrade your OS to XP?

 

[Vectronic]

Upgrade whatever horrible software you are using.

If you are just web browsing, and streaming audio... there's no reason why it would ever use more than 2-2.5GB (and that's including virus scanner, stuff like RainMeter or Skype, or whatever) unless you have 30 tabs open all playing YouTube videos.

Might want to check whatever you are using for streaming, maybe it's trying to cache the entire downloaded stream in memory, rather than say, the next 1MB of data, you might be holding 12 hours of audio in memory, rather than buffering the next 30 seconds.

 

[bononos]

Running win7, bitorrent, encoding a video, and playing vlc, and surfing - 1.7Gb used.

 

[ShawnD1]

You can also try getting a solid state hard drive. The laptop I'm using has a max of 2gb memory, so there was no way to upgrade that. I upgraded to an SSD for $90 and now it runs like a new computer. Having a swap file with lots of activity doesn't slow it down at all. Switching between applications on the old drive was a painfully slow process and the hard drive would go nuts. With the SSD, it switching between programs is instant.

 

[Coup27]

You can also try getting a solid state hard drive. The laptop I'm using has a max of 2gb memory, so there was no way to upgrade that. I upgraded to an SSD for $90 and now it runs like a new computer. Having a swap file with lots of activity doesn't slow it down at all. Switching between applications on the old drive was a painfully slow process and the hard drive would go nuts. With the SSD, it switching between programs is instant.

Even with an SSD, that tends to lock things up a bit.

..

 

[ShawnD1]

Get a better one. People assume a drive will be fast simply because it's an SSD, but that's not true. That would be like assuming all USB thumb drives are the same. The really crap SSDs have terrible write speeds. For something like a swap file, that will cripple performance. Another problem is that some of them lack the ability to trim, so every write requires a delete step then a write step.

Look how ghetto some drives are. These are all SSDs tested for 4k random write:
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/ssd-charts-2012/AS-SSD-4K-Random-Write,2785.html
The good drives are up around 100mb/s. Swapping on that drive will be fast. The slower ones are around 10 to 20mb/s, which is atrocious. The one in this laptop is a Corsair Force GT reburb, and that graph says it's around 81mb/s.

 

[Coup27]

You don't even know what drive he has.

Also suggesting somebody should update their SSD so their page file access is quicker is very poor advice. Nobody should be using their page file with any degree of regularity. Either the system does not have enough RAM or there is a problem. RAM is so cheap it would most likely be cheaper to add more RAM than it would be to update an SSD, which would result in a far more balanced machine.

 

[slackingoff7]

Nobody should be using their page file with any degree of regularity.

The point of a page file is its the source of last resort. It's going to be slow with high latency compared to system ram no matter if you have a ssd or a hard drive. Latency for system ram is in the nanoseconds and in the microseconds for ssd's and hard drives. Putting your page files on your ssd is just wasting the limited writes a ssd is capable in its lifetime (not such a huge deal but why put it there?)

4 gb is enough for nearly everyone but the most memory intensive users. You either have defective hardware or bad software. Consider backing up your data and reinstalling your OS and running a stress tester to find your issue.

 

[ShawnD1]

RAM is so cheap it would most likely be cheaper to add more RAM than it would be to update an SSD, which would result in a far more balanced machine.

Most computers I've seen can't be upgraded. If it comes with 4gb, that's the end. The motherboard won't support more. 2 of my desktop, my laptop, and my mom's computer are like that.

 

[Coup27]

Most computers I've seen can't be upgraded. If it comes with 4gb, that's the end. The motherboard won't support more. 2 of my desktop, my laptop, and my mom's computer are like that.

This again is simply not true. You have to go all the way back to circa 2004 to find chipsets which were limited to 4GB of RAM. Source

If systems post that era cannot be upgraded beyond 4GB then they are systems which are not designed to be used as a heavy machine, such as the Atom platform or a small quiet / thermally restricted machine and adding an SSD to act as fake RAM is a very bad idea and would yield very poor results.

 

[ShawnD1]

This again is simply not true. You have to go all the way back to circa 2004 to find chipsets which were limited to 4GB of RAM. Source

The Core2 gaming computer I bought in 2006 was limited to 4gb. My Celeron laptop is from 2007 and it's limited to 2gb. My mom's Athlon II is from 2010 and it's limited to 4gb.

 

[VirtualLarry]

4 gb is enough for nearly everyone but the most memory intensive users. You either have defective hardware or bad software. Consider backing up your data and reinstalling your OS and running a stress tester to find your issue.

I was running two NFS@home tasks, one was taking up 1.1GB, one was taking up 700-800MB, and then we have Skype, AIM, and especially 64-bit Waterfox with 40-50 tabs.

 

[Zidrewndacht]

So you're not the average memory user, LOL. Updating RAM was the best choice then.

Waterfox started locking up every few seconds after the 18.0.1 update to me, but maybe that's a different problem than what you're having.

On 16.0.2 I'd often be out of RAM (maxed at only 3,25GB, damn Intel 945GC!) but it still didn't lock up, just get somewhat sluggish. The 18.0.1 locks up even when I'm having 1GB free RAM.

 

[mikeymikec]

I would question what the OP is running before deeming that 4GB isn't enough for basic apps usage. My wife has been managing to get Firefox to use 1.7GB of RAM on its own by leaving several windows and a multitude of tabs open for weeks, and unsurprisingly since cutting that down (I think she has two windows open and about 8 tabs), her 6-month-old set-up works a heck of a lot better now.

I would expect Win7 64 SP1 with anti-virus and no apps running to be using 1GB RAM, give or take say 200MB. I currently have two different browsers open and Thunderbird, and I'm using 1.3GB physical. 4GB total.

As for mobo support, I've seen 2007 boards that can only handle 4GB RAM, the MSI K9N Neo-F for example. It all depends on how good the board was in the first place. The previous board in my set-up was an ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe was from about 2003 and could handle 3GB RAM at less than DDR400 and 2GB at DDR400. A board in 2009 I was using for computer builds could handle 8GB max. The boards I was using in 2010-2011 could handle 16GB max, and the boards I use at present can handle 32GB. I've been surprised a few times previously by finding out that someone else's board can only handle say half of what I would expect for a board of its era.

 

[zeeshanaayan07]

Now the Technology is increasing day by day. so the RAM is also increase.
If any one want to caught the time in increase RAM 16GB RAM DDR3.
Thanks

 

[blankslate]

Most computers I've seen can't be upgraded. If it comes with 4gb, that's the end. The motherboard won't support more. 2 of my desktop, my laptop, and my mom's computer are like that.

then you were on the unfortunate side of a new round of new hardware reaching the market.

My laptop was bought with a max of 4 gigs available. I've read about some people putting 8 gigs of memory in that model but it's not supported.

A year later laptops with chipsets supporting 8 gigabytes became regularly available.

My laptop runs Vista and currently with 2 browsers with multiple tabs open (some on youtube) along with Winamp and a streamripper application for it. plus VLC open

It's using about 1.21 gigabytes of memory and running only 30-50% cpu usage.

The OP needs to look investigate further because 4 gigs should be enough for the open applications he's describing without locking up even on a 5 year old cpu and a 5400 rpm HD.

I would suggest opening windows defender and looking at what programs are allowed to start with the computer. As well as uninstall old programs that aren't used anymore because software companies like to have their programs start at the same time as the system. In theory it's convenient but when enough programs do that you start to bog down the system.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Waterfox started locking up every few seconds after the 18.0.1 update to me, but maybe that's a different problem than what you're having.

I've noticed that too, but would that cause the internet radio to skip while scrolling?

 

[zeeshanaayan07]

yes change your computer as your requirement and buy the latest technology of computer which can easily support heaviest thing like game

 

[Wall Street]

I would try a few other torrent clients. If you have this on all the time, it should be noted that some of these programs are memory hogs.

 

[Phynaz]

Get a better one. People assume a drive will be fast simply because it's an SSD, but that's not true. That would be like assuming all USB thumb drives are the same. The really crap SSDs have terrible write speeds. For something like a swap file, that will cripple performance. Another problem is that some of them lack the ability to trim, so every write requires a delete step then a write step.

Look how ghetto some drives are. These are all SSDs tested for 4k random write:
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/ssd-charts-2012/AS-SSD-4K-Random-Write,2785.html
The good drives are up around 100mb/s. Swapping on that drive will be fast. The slower ones are around 10 to 20mb/s, which is atrocious. The one in this laptop is a Corsair Force GT reburb, and that graph says it's around 81mb/s.

You're clueless.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I would try a few other torrent clients. If you have this on all the time, it should be noted that some of these programs are memory hogs.

I never mentioned torrents.

 

[nickbits]

I never mentioned torrents.

I think he got you confused with bononos...

 

[grkM3]

I have very fast cl7 2133 memory and I just ran 5 you tube videos in sep browsers and had a bunch of other things running and my system monitor never went over 3.2gb used and I literally ran out of room on my 24in monitor to max out web pages.

2600k at 5ghz with corsair GT ssd drives and the system has ZERO bogging,it feels like its not even being pushed,the sad part is cpu usage never went over 10% running browsers for either you have a virus eating system resources or something is having a huge conflict with your hardware installed