Acer ES1-521 with 8Gb RAM, AMD A6-6310 CPU, Radeon R4 Graphics1Tb HDD.
It seems to have one memory slot occupied, one empty. Running Win10
64bit.

On 15/01/2021 21:55, Harry Bloomfield wrote:

Acer ES1-521 with 8Gb RAM, AMD A6-6310 CPU, Radeon R4 Graphics1Tb HDD.
It seems to have one memory slot occupied, one empty. Running Win10 64bit.

For most "office" style applications at the moment, 8GB ought to be
adequate. You may want more if doing lots of photoshop etc. You can
check by opening task manager when you have open a "typical" set of
applications, and clicking on the Performance tab, and then the "Memory"
entry on the left. Look at the "Committed" amount at the bottom of the
window. If that is less than the physical ram, then there will be no
particular gain in having more.

(The big performance gain would come from swapping the HDD for a SSD -
that can make even fairly basic laptops "feel" very much more responsive).


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On 15/01/2021 21:55, Harry Bloomfield wrote:
Acer ES1-521


For around £35 I would insert another 8G of RAM

I've performed this exercise on two laptops last year and for SOME
applications there has been a noticeable increase of speed.

I would take the type number off the existing RAM to make sure that you
are matching the modules in both slots.

There is often a Youtube video showing how to insert RAM or how to get
the back cover in order to gain access to the RAM slots.

On a friends ACER (different to the OPs model) that I added RAM to it
was a tiny bit of a PITA because the RAM slots were on the keyboard side
of the main board requiring a few ribbon cable connections to be
unplugged and the screws holding down the main board to be removed in
order to lift off the main board.


I've just checked and the ES1-521 is similar
Instructions here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELcQ7P7shxw

If you have no experience of dismantling Laptops watch a few more
Youtube videos showing connector dismantling and/or repairing. If you
haven't seen some of these connectors before the various methods of
connection may not be that obvious - but extremely easy once you do
know. Its also worth a close-up photo with a mobile phone or equivalent
of what you are dismantling so you can see where things were meant to go
on re-assembly.



--
mailto : news {at} admac {dot} myzen {dot} co {dot} uk

On 15/01/2021 22:22, alan_m wrote:
On 15/01/2021 21:55, Harry Bloomfield wrote:
Acer ES1-521


For around £35 I would insert another 8G of RAM

I've performed this exercise on two laptops last year and for SOME
applications there has been a noticeable increase of speed.

I would take the type number off the existing RAM to make sure that you
are matching the modules in both slots.

There is often a Youtube video showing how to insert RAM or how to get
the back cover in order to gain access to the RAM slots.

On a friends ACER (different to the OPs model) that I added RAM to it
was a tiny bit of a PITA because the RAM slots were on the keyboard side
of the main board requiring a few ribbon cable connections to be
unplugged and the screws holding down the main board to be removed in
order to lift off the main board.


I've just checked and the ES1-521 is similar
Instructions here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELcQ7P7shxw

If you have no experience of dismantling Laptops watch a few more
Youtube videos showing connector dismantling and/or repairing. If you
haven't seen some of these connectors before the various methods of
connection may not be that obvious - but extremely easy once you do
know. Its also worth a close-up photo with a mobile phone or equivalent
of what you are dismantling so you can see where things were meant to go
on re-assembly.




Possibly a better video showing ribbon connector dismantling. Often the
black bit is gently moved forward by a mm and the ribbon pulls out. On
some connector the black bit hinges up.

--
mailto : news {at} admac {dot} myzen {dot} co {dot} uk

John Rumm brought next idea :
You can check by opening task manager when you have open a "typical" set of
applications, and clicking on the Performance tab, and then the "Memory"
entry on the left. Look at the "Committed" amount at the bottom of the
window. If that is less than the physical ram, then there will be no
particular gain in having more.

That shows 4.1 committed of 8.8 Gb - I don't know where the extra .8Gb
came from, but it seems not worthwhile adding more. Thanks..

On Fri, 15 Jan 2021 21:55:18 GMT, Harry Bloomfield, Esq.
wrote:

Acer ES1-521 with 8Gb RAM, AMD A6-6310 CPU, Radeon R4 Graphics1Tb HDD.
It seems to have one memory slot occupied, one empty. Running Win10
64bit.

Yes...installing another similar spec SODIMM will enable dual channel
mode. You can never have enough RAM.

On Fri, 15 Jan 2021 22:26:36 +0000, alan_m
wrote:

On 15/01/2021 22:22, alan_m wrote:
On 15/01/2021 21:55, Harry Bloomfield wrote:
Acer ES1-521


For around £35 I would insert another 8G of RAM

I've performed this exercise on two laptops last year and for SOME
applications there has been a noticeable increase of speed.

That's because Dual Channel 64bit mode comes into play. I've never
understood why manufacturers only use one stick, when 2 modules is
always better( ie 2 x 4G will outperform 1 X 8G.) Saves them a few
pennies I suppose!

"Harry Bloomfield"; "Esq." wrote in message
...

Acer ES1-521 with 8Gb RAM, AMD A6-6310 CPU, Radeon R4 Graphics1Tb HDD. It
seems to have one memory slot occupied, one empty. Running Win10 64bit.

Yes. well worth increasing it if you arent just using it for usenet and
browsing.

On 15/01/2021 23:07, Rambo wrote:
On Fri, 15 Jan 2021 22:26:36 +0000, alan_m
wrote:

On 15/01/2021 22:22, alan_m wrote:
On 15/01/2021 21:55, Harry Bloomfield wrote:
Acer ES1-521


For around £35 I would insert another 8G of RAM

I've performed this exercise on two laptops last year and for SOME
applications there has been a noticeable increase of speed.

That's because Dual Channel 64bit mode comes into play. I've never
understood why manufacturers only use one stick, when 2 modules is
always better( ie 2 x 4G will outperform 1 X 8G.) Saves them a few
pennies I suppose!

Just checked and I do believe this laptop may well utilise dual channel
mode with 2 modules fitted.

Still agree with John about SSDs. They make boot time shrink. They are
more rugged and take less power (I think). Though always back them up as
they tend to fail catastrophically without notice.

On Sat, 16 Jan 2021 01:49:12 +0000, Fredxx
wrote:

On 15/01/2021 23:07, Rambo wrote:
On Fri, 15 Jan 2021 22:26:36 +0000, alan_m
wrote:

On 15/01/2021 22:22, alan_m wrote:
On 15/01/2021 21:55, Harry Bloomfield wrote:
Acer ES1-521


For around £35 I would insert another 8G of RAM

I've performed this exercise on two laptops last year and for SOME
applications there has been a noticeable increase of speed.

That's because Dual Channel 64bit mode comes into play. I've never
understood why manufacturers only use one stick, when 2 modules is
always better( ie 2 x 4G will outperform 1 X 8G.) Saves them a few
pennies I suppose!

Just checked and I do believe this laptop may well utilise dual channel
mode with 2 modules fitted.

Still agree with John about SSDs. They make boot time shrink. They are
more rugged and take less power (I think). Though always back them up as
they tend to fail catastrophically without notice.

Yes SSD is the way to go, however they can be expensive for a larger
capacity. Some older laptops, thinkpads in particular have a Msata
socket and an Msata SSD is pretty cheap 128GB is less than £30.
Granted it's usally only sata 2 but its a very cheap upgrade to
install a msata for Windows and keep your old HDD for storage. Also if
you have a cd/dvd the adapters are very cheap to fit an additional
small SSD drive in that bay and keep your existing HDD for storage.
It's a very cost effective way of upgrading an older laptop.

On 15/01/2021 21:55, Harry Bloomfield wrote:
Acer ES1-521 with 8Gb RAM, AMD A6-6310 CPU, Radeon R4 Graphics1Tb HDD.
It seems to have one memory slot occupied, one empty. Running Win10 64bit.

Not really worth it unless you are a 'power user'

this desktop here is heavily used and I never run out of 8GB RAM
TBH 4GB is enough for most things.



--
The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to
rule.
€“ H. L. Mencken, American journalist, 1880-1956

Harry Bloomfield wrote:
Acer ES1-521 with 8Gb RAM, AMD A6-6310 CPU, Radeon R4 Graphics1Tb HDD.
It seems to have one memory slot occupied, one empty. Running Win10 64bit.

Uh,oh!

https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Puma/...20A6-6310.html

Memory channels: 1 ===
Channel width (bits): 64
Supported memory: DDR3L-1866
DIMMs per channel: 2 ===

It's not dual channel, according to that.
This means there is no bandwidth increase
from stuffing the second slot.

All that stuffing the second slot does,
is increase the overall amount of RAM.
For which you have to decide, whether you
were "short" of RAM previously.

The above issue is also a danger with dual channel CPUs.
The designer of the motherboard reserves the right to
only wire up one of the two channels, and put two DIMMs
on that single channel. Doing so, reduces power consumption
on the memory controller, by two or three watts, improving
battery life. Part of that, is things like terminator power
for the bus (the bus design varies from one generation to
the next, so I will refrain from predictions on this).

But the above information suggests that, unless you
really really need to double the RAM, it's just not
worth it. For example, some people like to keep 200 tabs
open on their browser (for work say), and those are the
people who will tell you how wonderful all the extra RAM was.
Well, their processor is now slow as molasses, lugging
all that junk around. As long as the web pages are
not allowed to update themselves, the CPU loading
will be less.

Paul

Try an ssd first.
Brian

--

This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
Harry Bloomfield; "Esq." wrote in message
...
Acer ES1-521 with 8Gb RAM, AMD A6-6310 CPU, Radeon R4 Graphics1Tb HDD. It
seems to have one memory slot occupied, one empty. Running Win10 64bit.

All good points, but I'd still think that the drive might be an issue.
Unless its a very fast one an ssd will outperform it. Generally the ram
only needs to be more if you are using a lot of things at once and some of
them are very data intensive.
Brian

--

This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"alan_m" wrote in message
...
On 15/01/2021 21:55, Harry Bloomfield wrote:
Acer ES1-521


For around £35 I would insert another 8G of RAM

I've performed this exercise on two laptops last year and for SOME
applications there has been a noticeable increase of speed.

I would take the type number off the existing RAM to make sure that you
are matching the modules in both slots.

There is often a Youtube video showing how to insert RAM or how to get the
back cover in order to gain access to the RAM slots.

On a friends ACER (different to the OPs model) that I added RAM to it was
a tiny bit of a PITA because the RAM slots were on the keyboard side of
the main board requiring a few ribbon cable connections to be unplugged
and the screws holding down the main board to be removed in order to lift
off the main board.


I've just checked and the ES1-521 is similar
Instructions here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELcQ7P7shxw

If you have no experience of dismantling Laptops watch a few more Youtube
videos showing connector dismantling and/or repairing. If you haven't seen
some of these connectors before the various methods of connection may not
be that obvious - but extremely easy once you do know. Its also worth a
close-up photo with a mobile phone or equivalent of what you are
dismantling so you can see where things were meant to go on re-assembly.



--
mailto : news {at} admac {dot} myzen {dot} co {dot} uk

On 16/01/2021 01:49, Fredxx wrote:

Still agree with John about SSDs. They make boot time shrink. They are
more rugged and take less power (I think). Though always back them up as
they tend to fail catastrophically without notice.


I fitted a SSD to my previous laptop and really didn't notice that much
change in boot up time. Yes there was some increase in speed but again
only for some activities, noticeably when virus checking the whole
system etc. At the time I didn't think the investment worth it for the
performance increase. The performance of the hard disk on my previous
machine may not have been the bottle neck or the factor limiting the speed.

Many years on, prices now for SSD are different so if the usage of the
laptop doesn't require massive amounts of hard disk space then SSD may
be worth investigating to increase speed. What would you do with the
speed increase that you are not doing now.

I'm probably in the market for a new machine (laptop) sometime this year
and I will seriously consider one with SSD rather than one with spinning
rust. I believe that one thing to watch with current machines is that
the SSD also has a form factor much like RAM modules that slot into
connectors BUT some manufactures are now soldering the chips directly on
to the main board so no easy DIY upgrade path is possible if a larger
SSD is required.


--
mailto : news {at} admac {dot} myzen {dot} co {dot} uk

On Sat, 16 Jan 2021 11:13:30 +1100, Fred, better known as cantankerous
trolling senile geezer Rodent Speed, wrote:


FLUSH the trolling senile asshole's latest troll**** unread

--
The Natural Philosopher about senile Rodent:
"Rod speed is not a Brexiteer. He is an Australian troll and arsehole."
Message-ID:

Brian Gaff (Sofa) used his keyboard to write :
Try an ssd first.

I have decided to leave it as is - an SSD of comparable size to my HDD
would make it a very expensive upgrade for what is now a battered old
machine. John's diagnostic method suggests I have more memory than I
need.

It's by no means slow, but a boost in response would not go amiss.

Fixing one issue a while ago, I caused another one - I managed to
damage the one of the USB + microSD card connections to the m/board. I
managed to pick up a good, cheap used one a couple of weeks ago, all
now working - in the process I noticed a spare ram slot, which got me
wondering if it might be worth while my doubling the ram, as cheap
upgrade.

On 16/01/2021 08:36, alan_m wrote:
On 16/01/2021 01:49, Fredxx wrote:

Still agree with John about SSDs. They make boot time shrink. They are
more rugged and take less power (I think). Though always back them up
as they tend to fail catastrophically without notice.


I fitted a SSD to my previous laptop and really didn't notice that much
change in boot up time. Yes there was some increase in speed but again
only for some activities, noticeably when virus checking the whole
system etc. At the time I didn't think the investment worth it for the
performance increase. The performance of the hard disk on my previous
machine may not have been the bottle neck or the factor limiting the speed.

from 3 minutes boot to 28 seconds is worth having, also loading programs
is sub second

SSDs do NOT fail catastrophically. Quite the reverse, They keep going
with substantial and detectable errors.

you need to use S.M.A.R/T to interrogate them.

https://www.howtogeek.com/134735/how...rive-is-dying/


Many years on, prices now for SSD are different so if the usage of the
laptop doesn't require massive amounts of hard disk space then SSD may
be worth investigating to increase speed.Â* What would you do with the
speed increase that you are not doing now.

They are still about three times the price of spinning rust, but its
getting closer. They are faster last *longer* and are more shock resistant.



I'm probably in the market for a new machine (laptop) sometime this year
and I will seriously consider one with SSD rather than one with spinning
rust. I believe that one thing to watch with current machines is that
the SSD also has a form factor much like RAM modules that slot into
connectors BUT some manufactures are now soldering the chips directly on
to the main board so no easy DIY upgrade path is possible if a larger
SSD is required.

There is usually expansion available




--
€œThe urge to save humanity is almost always only a false face for the
urge to rule it.€�
€“ H. L. Mencken

On 16/01/2021 10:03, Harry Bloomfield wrote:
Brian Gaff (Sofa) used his keyboard to write :
Try an ssd first.

I have decided to leave it as is - an SSD of comparable size to my HDD
would make it a very expensive upgrade for what is now a battered old
machine. John's diagnostic method suggests I have more memory than I need.

Since I never needed the TB of disk mine came with I removed it and put
in a 120GB SSD drive.

faster on booting. Obviously programs that dont use the disk run at the
same speed they always did....

It's by no means slow, but a boost in response would not go amiss.

Fixing one issue a while ago, I caused another one - I managed to damage
the one of the USB + microSD card connections to the m/board. I managed
to pick up a good, cheap used one a couple of weeks ago, all now working
- in the process I noticed a spare ram slot, which got me wondering if
it might be worth while my doubling the ram, as cheap upgrade.

Getting more speed out of a computer is a case of diminishing returns.
Most code now on a single user computer fits comfortably in 8GB RAM with
no swapping. SSD improves boot time, but not running speed, and even
upping cache and cores in the CPU doesn't speed most stuff up that much.


--
If I had all the money I've spent on drink...
...I'd spend it on drink.

Sir Henry (at Rawlinson's End)

On 16/01/2021 08:36, alan_m wrote:

On 16/01/2021 01:49, Fredxx wrote:

Still agree with John about SSDs. They make boot time shrink. They are
more rugged and take less power (I think). Though always back them up
as they tend to fail catastrophically without notice.


I fitted a SSD to my previous laptop and really didn't notice that much
change in boot up time. Yes there was some increase in speed but again
only for some activities, noticeably when virus checking the whole
system etc. At the time I didn't think the investment worth it for the
performance increase. The performance of the hard disk on my previous
machine may not have been the bottle neck or the factor limiting the speed.

IME the amount of difference you get depends on a number of variables.

Laptops with really slow CPUs don't benefit as much since the bottleneck
simple moves to the CPU[1].

For medium spec and up however there is more scope for improvement. On
i3 or i5 based machines (or comparable AMD platforms) the change can be
dramatic.

The way you use it also matters. If you boot, then load and use one
program at a time, you will see less benefit since you are not relying
on that much disk access anyway. If however you have a bunch of apps
open at any one time and swap back and fourth between them you will get
more impact from a slow disc.

Many years on, prices now for SSD are different so if the usage of the
laptop doesn't require massive amounts of hard disk space then SSD may
be worth investigating to increase speed.Â* What would you do with the
speed increase that you are not doing now.

Years on, the speed of SSDs has also improved. Most reasonable SSDs from
known brands will run as fast at the 6Gb/s SATA interface can go - so
typically top out about 560 MB/sec.

More modern laptops often now have M2 drives, and some of those support
a NVMe interface. That removes the bottleneck of the SATA connection, so
read speeds of 2500MB/sec are not uncommon.

I'm probably in the market for a new machine (laptop) sometime this year
and I will seriously consider one with SSD rather than one with spinning
rust.

There is very little reason to go for a standard HDD these days. For
mobile use SSD wins on every count except cost per GB, and even that is
not as dramatic as once was. So unless you really must have 2TB of
storage on the laptop, go SSD.

(IME for most users, 250GB is usually plenty)

I believe that one thing to watch with current machines is that
the SSD also has a form factor much like RAM modules that slot into

Yup that's the M2 drive format. Note that M2 sockets are not all the
same - some only do a version of SATA, while some have the faster option
of NVMe.

connectors BUT some manufactures are now soldering the chips directly on
to the main board so no easy DIY upgrade path is possible if a larger
SSD is required.

Apple being one of the main culprits on that!


[1] Also worth noting that windows versions before Win 7 don't support a
feature of SSDs called "trim" - so performance slowly degrades with
time. Another problem on systems built with Win XP can be the
partitioning software did not always align the start of partitions on
page boundaries, and that also hurts SSD performance.



--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On 15/01/2021 22:48, Rambo wrote:
On Fri, 15 Jan 2021 21:55:18 GMT, Harry Bloomfield, Esq.
wrote:

Acer ES1-521 with 8Gb RAM, AMD A6-6310 CPU, Radeon R4 Graphics1Tb HDD.
It seems to have one memory slot occupied, one empty. Running Win10
64bit.

Yes...installing another similar spec SODIMM will enable dual channel
mode. You can never have enough RAM.

That's not really true... you could argue you can never have too much
ram. But there is clearly a point where you have "enough". Once you have
reached that, adding more will not in itself improve performance further
(with the caveat that two devices may perform slightly better than one
even if the total amount of RAM is the same).


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On 16/01/2021 10:12, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

They are still about three times the price of spinning rust, but its
getting closer. They are faster last *longer* and are more shock resistant.

True, but choose your brand carefully...

I have seen noticeable differences in reliability between some brands.
For example I have had very high failure rates with Mushkin and AData.
Very low rates on Kingston, almost zero on HyperX (also technically
Kingston) and so far, zero failures on Samsung which has become my brand
of choice for now.

Also avoid no name SSDs from ebay etc, many lack adequate DRAM caches,
and have slow controllers. So they look quite quick on small transfers,
but the performance drops off very quickly on large reads and writes.


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

Harry Bloomfield wrote:

That shows 4.1 committed of 8.8 Gb - I don't know where the extra .8Gb
came from

Swapfile

but it seems not worthwhile adding more.

Agree, if 1/2 is unused, and you add another 8GB, then 3/4 will be unused.

On 15/01/2021 21:55, Harry Bloomfield wrote:
Acer ES1-521 with 8Gb RAM, AMD A6-6310 CPU, Radeon R4 Graphics1Tb HDD.
It seems to have one memory slot occupied, one empty. Running Win10 64bit.

Probably not unless you do a lot of video editing, transcoding or
rendering or something equally hungry for memory.

The most worthwhile upgrade on older portables is swapping the old slow
spinning rust drive for a new fast low power SSD.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On 15/01/2021 23:07, Rambo wrote:
Saves them a few
pennies I suppose!

A few pennies x lots = lots of pennies.
Perhaps short sighted, but in the short term MUCH better
profits/dividends .

On 16/01/2021 07:25, Paul wrote:
Harry Bloomfield wrote:
Acer ES1-521 with 8Gb RAM, AMD A6-6310 CPU, Radeon R4 Graphics1Tb HDD.
It seems to have one memory slot occupied, one empty. Running Win10
64bit.

Uh,oh!

https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Puma/...20A6-6310.html

** Memory channels: 1************* ===
** Channel width (bits): 64
** Supported memory: DDR3L-1866
** DIMMs per channel: 2*********** ===

It's not dual channel, according to that.
This means there is no bandwidth increase
from stuffing the second slot.

All that stuffing the second slot does,
is increase the overall amount of RAM.
For which you have to decide, whether you
were "short" of RAM previously.

The above issue is also a danger with dual channel CPUs.
The designer of the motherboard reserves the right to
only wire up one of the two channels, and put two DIMMs
on that single channel. Doing so, reduces power consumption
on the memory controller, by two or three watts, improving
battery life. Part of that, is things like terminator power
for the bus (the bus design varies from one generation to
the next, so I will refrain from predictions on this).

But the above information suggests that, unless you
really really need to double the RAM, it's just not
worth it. For example, some people like to keep 200 tabs
open on their browser (for work say), and those are the
people who will tell you how wonderful all the extra RAM was.
Well, their processor is now slow as molasses, lugging
all that junk around. As long as the web pages are
not allowed to update themselves, the CPU loading
will be less.


It seems that a range of CPUs were fitted to the E21-521 and that some
had fitted the A8-6410. This is an interesting article where it seem bus
speeds went down after fitting a second module.

https://community.amd.com/t5/process...eed/m-p/404364

Another article said that they really ought to be matching pairs,
including manufacturer, in order to use any dual channel feature,
assuming that is an option for Harry's laptop.

On 15/01/2021 22:48, Rambo wrote:
On Fri, 15 Jan 2021 21:55:18 GMT, Harry Bloomfield, Esq.
wrote:

Acer ES1-521 with 8Gb RAM, AMD A6-6310 CPU, Radeon R4 Graphics1Tb HDD.
It seems to have one memory slot occupied, one empty. Running Win10
64bit.

Yes...installing another similar spec SODIMM will enable dual channel
mode. You can never have enough RAM.


Putting more than 4GB in a 32 bit Win 7 machine was pointless.

Not sure if the same applies to Win 10/32 bit.

On Sat, 16 Jan 2021 13:19:18 +0000, Andrew wrote:

On 15/01/2021 22:48, Rambo wrote:
On Fri, 15 Jan 2021 21:55:18 GMT, Harry Bloomfield, Esq.
wrote:

Acer ES1-521 with 8Gb RAM, AMD A6-6310 CPU, Radeon R4 Graphics1Tb HDD.
It seems to have one memory slot occupied, one empty. Running Win10
64bit.

Yes...installing another similar spec SODIMM will enable dual channel
mode. You can never have enough RAM.


Putting more than 4GB in a 32 bit Win 7 machine was pointless.

Not sure if the same applies to Win 10/32 bit.

Of course it does, any 32bit system can only use about 3.2GB of RAM.

On 15/01/2021 21:55, Harry Bloomfield wrote:
Acer ES1-521 with 8Gb RAM, AMD A6-6310 CPU, Radeon R4 Graphics1Tb HDD.
It seems to have one memory slot occupied, one empty. Running Win10 64bit.

I'd say no.

Having more memory allows mucking about with virtual machines, keeping
gazillion tabs open in web browsers, and almost no use of your paging
file - keeping things snappy.

On the other hand, 8GB is more than enough for most casual uses, and
your machine might be bound by other factors like your 1.8GHz Quad Core
CPU or hard drive speed. Your Radeon R4 Graphics memory (integrated in
he A6-6310 CPU) is deducted out of your system memory?

I've seen it said that going dual channel (memory amount staying the
same) is a gain of 10% over single. Whether that is worth it?

--
Adrian C

jon wrote:

any 32bit system can only use about 3.2GB of RAM.

But likely for a different reason than you think ...

Putting more than 4GB in a 32 bit Win 7 machine was pointless.

Not sure if the same applies to Win 10/32 bit.

Of course it does, any 32bit system can only use about 3.2GB of RAM.

With Linux that is per process. So multi-processing can use all the memory.
Don't know about windows.

On 15/01/2021 22:08, John Rumm wrote:
On 15/01/2021 21:55, Harry Bloomfield wrote:
...
check by opening task manager when you have open a "typical" set of
applications, and clicking on the Performance tab, and then the "Memory"
entry on the left. Look at the "Committed" amount at the bottom of the
window. If that is less than the physical ram, then there will be no
particular gain in having more.


I am no expert but I don't think that's how Windows manages memory. If
you put more RAM in then the same system will use more RAM, and work
better. At least that's how Windows used to be before I lost interest in it.

TW

On 16/01/2021 15:36, Jim Jackson wrote:
Putting more than 4GB in a 32 bit Win 7 machine was pointless.

Not sure if the same applies to Win 10/32 bit.

Of course it does, any 32bit system can only use about 3.2GB of RAM.

With Linux that is per process. So multi-processing can use all the memory.
Don't know about windows.

I don't think there are any 32 bit linices left in the main distros

I remember the arguments about 'which was best' the
mid noughties

I went 64 bit sometime around 2008 IIRC

--
€œBut what a weak barrier is truth when it stands in the way of an
hypothesis!€�

Mary Wollstonecraft

Jim Jackson wrote:
Putting more than 4GB in a 32 bit Win 7 machine was pointless.

Not sure if the same applies to Win 10/32 bit.

Of course it does, any 32bit system can only use about 3.2GB of RAM.

With Linux that is per process. So multi-processing can use all the memory.
Don't know about windows.

Surely the kernel can only 'see' 4Gb of memory on a 32-bit machine so
it can't hand more than a *total* of 4Gb to all the processes it's
managing. That is unless there's some clever memory management
hardware in addition to the 32-bit addressing.

--
Chris Green
·

Chris Green wrote:

Surely the kernel can only 'see' 4Gb of memory on a 32-bit machine

PAE allows memory up to 64GB with a 32bit O/S

For Windows, some drivers were found to be buggy when dealing with more
than 4GB, so for desktop versions this was artificially limited to 4GB
(there are hacks to switch off the 4GB limit) and only allowed on
servers where better qualification of drivers was enforced.

so it can't hand more than a *total* of 4Gb to all the processes
it's managing. That is unless there's some clever memory management
hardware in addition to the 32-bit addressing.

An extra level of page tables.

Depending how they're tuned, server versions of windows allow either 2GB
or 3GB of memory per process, or there's an API that allows memory
hungry programs (e.g. SQL databases) to 'bank switch' memory to access
more than 4GB in a single process.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/memory/address-windowing-extensions

All in all, for many years, it's been easier to use a 64bit O/S.

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
On 16/01/2021 08:36, alan_m wrote:
On 16/01/2021 01:49, Fredxx wrote:

Still agree with John about SSDs. They make boot time shrink. They are
more rugged and take less power (I think). Though always back them up as
they tend to fail catastrophically without notice.


I fitted a SSD to my previous laptop and really didn't notice that much
change in boot up time. Yes there was some increase in speed but again
only for some activities, noticeably when virus checking the whole system
etc. At the time I didn't think the investment worth it for the
performance increase. The performance of the hard disk on my previous
machine may not have been the bottle neck or the factor limiting the
speed.

from 3 minutes boot to 28 seconds is worth having,

Only if you boot much. I dont, I suspend instead.

also loading programs is sub second

I dont do that much either, I leave them loaded.

SSDs do NOT fail catastrophically. Quite the reverse, They keep going
with substantial and detectable errors.

you need to use S.M.A.R/T to interrogate them.

https://www.howtogeek.com/134735/how...rive-is-dying/

Many years on, prices now for SSD are different so if the usage of the
laptop doesn't require massive amounts of hard disk space then SSD may be
worth investigating to increase speed. What would you do with the speed
increase that you are not doing now.

They are still about three times the price of spinning rust, but its
getting closer. They are faster last *longer*

Thats less clear.

and are more shock resistant.

I dont throw my laptop very often at all.

I'm probably in the market for a new machine (laptop) sometime this year
and I will seriously consider one with SSD rather than one with spinning
rust. I believe that one thing to watch with current machines is that the
SSD also has a form factor much like RAM modules that slot into
connectors BUT some manufactures are now soldering the chips directly on
to the main board so no easy DIY upgrade path is possible if a larger SSD
is required.

There is usually expansion available

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
On 16/01/2021 10:03, Harry Bloomfield wrote:
Brian Gaff (Sofa) used his keyboard to write :
Try an ssd first.

I have decided to leave it as is - an SSD of comparable size to my HDD
would make it a very expensive upgrade for what is now a battered old
machine. John's diagnostic method suggests I have more memory than I
need.

Since I never needed the TB of disk mine came with I removed it and put in
a 120GB SSD drive.

faster on booting. Obviously programs that dont use the disk run at the
same speed they always did....

It's by no means slow, but a boost in response would not go amiss.

Fixing one issue a while ago, I caused another one - I managed to damage
the one of the USB + microSD card connections to the m/board. I managed
to pick up a good, cheap used one a couple of weeks ago, all now
working - in the process I noticed a spare ram slot, which got me
wondering if it might be worth while my doubling the ram, as cheap
upgrade.

Getting more speed out of a computer is a case of diminishing returns.
Most code now on a single user computer fits comfortably in 8GB RAM with
no swapping.

But when you have more than one loaded all the time
so you have an instant switch to it when you want to
use it, its more complicated than that. And its much
better to have virtual OSs than do full reboots to do
something in another OS too and that takes lots of ram.

SSD improves boot time,

But those with a clue dont boot much at all. I only do
it very infrequently, I suspend instead of shutting down.

but not running speed, and even upping cache and cores in the CPU doesn't
speed most stuff up that much.

And it doesnt really make any sense to do anything
much with a clapped out old laptop like that.

On 2021-01-16, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/01/2021 15:36, Jim Jackson wrote:
Putting more than 4GB in a 32 bit Win 7 machine was pointless.

Not sure if the same applies to Win 10/32 bit.

Of course it does, any 32bit system can only use about 3.2GB of RAM.

With Linux that is per process. So multi-processing can use all the memory.
Don't know about windows.

I don't think there are any 32 bit linices left in the main distros

Depends what you call main :-)

Given the number of Raspberry Pi's sold, I'm sure one of the main
distros is Raspberry Pi OS (previously known as Raspbian), even accounting
for not all pis running it. And Raspberry Pi OS is 32 bit (yeah I know
there's a 64 bit not quite alpha version out there).

But in the Intel/AMD world you are probably right. However 64bit is not
always better, as I know to my cost after I upgraded to 64 bit on my
modest Intel based desktop. It had worked pretty well, if modestly, with
32 bit linux for quite a time, but the memory use of 64 bit really hits
performance - it swaps a lot. Can't be bothered with a memory upgrade,
so am testing whether I can do most things on an 8Gb RPI4.

I remember the arguments about 'which was best' the
mid noughties

I went 64 bit sometime around 2008 IIRC

On Sun, 17 Jan 2021 06:17:40 +1100, Fred, better known as cantankerous
trolling senile geezer Rodent Speed, wrote:

FLUSH the trolling senile asshole's latest troll**** unread

--
Marland revealing the senile sociopath's pathology:
"You have mentioned Alexa in a couple of threads recently, it is not a real
woman you know even if it is the only thing with a female name that stays
around around while you talk it to it.
Poor sad git who has to resort to Usenet and electronic devices for any
interaction as all real people run a mile to get away from you boring them
to death."
MID:

On Sun, 17 Jan 2021 06:23:49 +1100, Fred, better known as cantankerous
trolling senile geezer Rodent Speed, wrote:

FLUSH the trolling senile pest's latest troll**** unread

--
about senile Rot Speed:
"This is like having a conversation with someone with brain damage."
MID: