Get a Video Card or More Memory

[dakotagts]

I purchased a Toshiba A205-S4577 and I am sick of seeing the memory usage bar hovering around 70% with only email IM and firefox running. If I fire up Photoshop or other programs like word or excel, the memory usage jumps to 85% - 100%. Do I need to goto a 2 gig ram setup or should I look at a video card? Also post suggestions for what to buy, to run the above programs. Not a gaming rig so top line is not an issue. Here are the specs of the notebook.

Processor

* Processor
* Intel Core 2 Duo T5300 / 1.73 GHz

* Data bus speed
* 533 MHz

* Chipset type
* Mobile Intel 945GM Express

RAM

* Installed Size
* 1 GB / 4 GB(max)

* Technology
* DDR II SDRAM - 667 MHz

* Memory specification compliance
* PC2-5300

Video

* Graphics Processor / Vendor
* Intel GMA 950

* Video Memory
* Dynamic Video Memory Technology 3.0 - 8 MB

* Max allocated RAM size
* 256 MB

Storage

* Floppy Drive
* None

* Hard Drive
* 160 GB - Serial ATA-150 - 5400 rpm

 

[TheStu]

Well, the simple fact of the matter is that 99% of the time (ok, maybe less) you cannot upgrade the video card in a laptop.

Are you running Windows Vista? That (to the best of my understanding) runs more processes in the background than XP, as well as keeps more active in RAM, it is a helpful technique to increase the snappiness of one's system, and is done by other OSes as well.

Increasing the memory would help things along quite a bit really, 2GB would allow you to keep larger things in memory instead of it having to page the data from the hard drive.

So, short answer, get a 2GB (2*1GB) kit, around $80 or so, of DDR2-667 PC5300 memory

 

[corkyg]

The video spec says "vendor." Not sure what that means, but maybe the vendor can insert a graphics module.

Be that as it may - your best bet is to increase the RAM. 2 GB is sort of the Vista sweetspot in a laptop.

 

[Oil]

Considering that you have Intel integrated graphics, it is NOT possible to upgrade your GPU. Get 2GB of ram

 

[dakotagts]

So the next question. Is the Memory standard Notebook RAM or is it desktop ram? The way its listed it SDRAM not SO-DIMM. I am looking at the patriot kit at newegg.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820220221

Will this work? My model does not show up in memory searches either...

 

[dakotagts]

I did find it in a Crucial search, it says that the 2 gig kit would work. shown here. http://www.crucial.com/search/...aspx?keywords=CT673593

So i guess that means most 200-pin will work at the PC2-5300

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: corkyg
Be that as it may - your best bet is to increase the RAM. 2 GB is sort of the Vista sweetspot in a laptop.

Sorry - I'm a little late to the party, but I agree!

I'm running Vista Home Premium and it uses over 1GB of memory just sitting idle... 😉

 

[Old Hippie]

I'm running Vista Home Premium and it uses over 1GB of memory just sitting idle...

Yikes. :Q

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: Old Hippie

I'm running Vista Home Premium and it uses over 1GB of memory just sitting idle...

Yikes. :Q

Dude, I didn't invent Vista, and I'm not bragging about how much memory it consumes!

That would be like bragging about how much gas my car uses...

I'm just telling you like it is. If you don't believe me, I'll be glad to furnish screenies! 😀

 

[iseestars]

You can turn off all the enhanced features of vista, and it'll use significantly less ram.

It's also worthwhile noting that Vista actually uses ram differently than XP did. It doesn't automatically equate to being slower or less efficient. It's caching a lot more and using all that ram to have a constant pool so things start quicker when you actually run them.

It allocates the needed memory to programs on the fly. I've noticed most people complain about it being a memory hog, but don't actually bring up how fast it runs in real life. You should have 1GB to run Vista, but that doesn't automatically mean (as a lot of people seem to assume) that Vista wastes memory. In reality, it's just using it different and IMO more efficiently.

Check this out

 

[Old Hippie]

Originally posted by: VinDSL

Originally posted by: Old Hippie

I'm running Vista Home Premium and it uses over 1GB of memory just sitting idle...

Yikes. :Q

Dude, I didn't invent Vista, and I'm not bragging about how much memory it consumes!

That would be like bragging about how much gas my car uses...

I'm just telling you like it is. If you don't believe me, I'll be glad to furnish screenies! 😀

Not saying anything of the sort. I had no idea Vista could be that memory hungry!

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: Old Hippie
I had no idea Vista could be that memory hungry!

Yep, it is...

And, I don't mean to imply that it's a bad thing!

If you have 2GB, you might as well make use of it, yes? 😀

I'm just recommending that ppl run at least 2GB RAM with Vista Home Premium or above.

I dunno, maybe you could get by with 1GB with Vista Basic, or you could turn off Aero, but where's the fun in that? 🙂

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: VinDSL
I dunno, maybe you could get by with 1GB with Vista Basic, or you could turn off Aero, but where's the fun in that? 🙂

I'm with you on that one. What's the point of having RAM if you don't use it? Anyway, I got room to add 1 more gig in my lappy if needed - but so far - it is very happy and snappy with 2. 🙂

 

[Parasitic]

If you don't play games, more memory will do it. The GMA 950 is fairly decent for basic workload.

 

[dakotagts]

Whoa, got the crowd awake on this one. I do not want to turn off any of the new features in vista, so I guess thats my answer. This is home premium and I have the side bar running with a clock and dual-core/memory monitor. I know there was a great site that had all the needed processes in XP and the one you could close. Is there a really good one for Vista Home Premium? One that I get sick of is the User control pop-up warnings. I turned them off, but now I have to deal with the security settings alert everytime at startup.

...Just a general rant.

Again what is the thought of that Patriot Ram at newegg.com at $83 for 2gig (2x1gig). I have Patriot in my desktop and am happy with it.

 

[heymrdj]

Originally posted by: Old Hippie

Originally posted by: VinDSL

Originally posted by: Old Hippie

I'm running Vista Home Premium and it uses over 1GB of memory just sitting idle...

Yikes. :Q

Dude, I didn't invent Vista, and I'm not bragging about how much memory it consumes!

That would be like bragging about how much gas my car uses...

I'm just telling you like it is. If you don't believe me, I'll be glad to furnish screenies! 😀

Not saying anything of the sort. I had no idea Vista could be that memory hungry!

It's not that hungry. You've got a bunch of **** running. Try a spyware scanner or something. I idle at 41% Ram (about 800MB ram used) on Vista Ultimate, and that's with a bunch of HP crap installed.

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: heymrdj
It's not that hungry. You've got a bunch of **** running. Try a spyware scanner or something. I idle at 41% Ram (about 800MB ram used) on Vista Ultimate, and that's with a bunch of HP crap installed.

Actually, you're right!

I was going to write an addendum, but I forgot about it...

When I first bought my Toshiba, it was packed up with trialware, and a lot of crap was running in the background - too much to remember! @ idle it was using 56% of the memory.

I spent an entire day erasing all that **** and two days installing my usual list of 'musthaves'...

Last time I looked, I'm ONLY using 45% (like 862MB) @ idle. I *guess* that's an improvement.

I'm on a W2K Pro desktop right now (1GB RAM) - got 4 apps open - and it's using about 400MB according to Task Manager. I could probably get by with 512MB RAM - same as running Vista with 1GB...

Thus, I would say my Vista Home Premium lappy (with Aero and the sidebar enabled) uses roughly twice as much memory as my W2K desktop... give or take! They are configured just about the same, software-wise.

Anyway, I'm standing by my original statement. Get 2GB RAM if you're running Vista! 🙂

 

[heymrdj]

Originally posted by: VinDSL

Originally posted by: heymrdj
It's not that hungry. You've got a bunch of **** running. Try a spyware scanner or something. I idle at 41% Ram (about 800MB ram used) on Vista Ultimate, and that's with a bunch of HP crap installed.

Actually, you're right!

I was going to write an addendum, but I forgot about it...

When I first bought my Toshiba, it was packed up with trialware, and a lot of crap was running in the background - too much to remember! @ idle it was using 56% of the memory.

I spent an entire day erasing all that **** and two days installing my usual list of 'musthaves'...

Last time I looked, I'm ONLY using 45% (like 862MB) @ idle. I *guess* that's an improvement.

I'm on a W2K Pro desktop right now (1GB RAM) - got 4 apps open - and it's using about 400MB according to Task Manager. I could probably get by with 512MB RAM - same as running Vista with 1GB...

Thus, I would say my Vista Home Premium lappy (with Aero and the sidebar enabled) uses roughly twice as much memory as my W2K desktop... give or take! They are configured just about the same, software-wise.

Anyway, I'm standing by my original statement. Get 2GB RAM if you're running Vista! 🙂

It certainly will run on one, but two lets vista do it's full job, which is caching your most important items.