Moderator
Posted 02 July 2015 - 09:18 AM
I disagree with that assessment. I have 4 GB for the computer I use at home for some gaming. It's fine speed-wise.
But isn't fine a subjective thing? Might be ok for some people and not for others. I guess it's just preference, I just can't go from my 8GB to my wife's 4 GB, it's unbearable to me. Maybe I'm just too type A for my own good and too impatient.
HOF
Posted 02 July 2015 - 09:37 AM
But isn't fine a subjective thing? Might be ok for some people and not for others. I guess it's just preference, I just can't go from my 8GB to my wife's 4 GB, it's unbearable to me. Maybe I'm just too type A for my own good and too impatient.
The one I recommended for him does have 8 GB of RAM. I think it's still overkill for his needs but who am I to judge?
These links are a bit more objective.
http://techbuyersgur...speedgaming.php
https://linustechtip...tter-in-gaming/
And if you're looking for some humor:
http://www.cnet.com/...uantity-183978/
What processor does your wife have? If her processor is junk then her computer will go slow. And since I'm guessing her computer is older than yours that could explain part of the problem.
Moderator
Posted 02 July 2015 - 10:19 AM
But isn't fine a subjective thing? Might be ok for some people and not for others. I guess it's just preference, I just can't go from my 8GB to my wife's 4 GB, it's unbearable to me. Maybe I'm just too type A for my own good and too impatient.
The one I recommended for him does have 8 GB of RAM. I think it's still overkill for his needs but who am I to judge?
These links are a bit more objective.
http://techbuyersgur...speedgaming.php
https://linustechtip...tter-in-gaming/
And if you're looking for some humor:
http://www.cnet.com/...uantity-183978/
What processor does your wife have? If her processor is junk then her computer will go slow. And since I'm guessing her computer is older than yours that could explain part of the problem.
HOF
Posted 02 July 2015 - 10:44 AM
The processor isn't great that's for sure, mine isn't great either though. Both AMD and like 2.0 and 1.8ghz.
Hers is actually newer than mine by a year, but she didn't need the muscle I do so I didn't upgrade hers.
You're right - probably not the processor. Guess you do a lot of stuff at once...
Fair-weather ex-diehard
Posted 02 July 2015 - 11:38 AM
It sounds like you're looking for a mid level laptop (closer to low-end rather than high-end) but you're shopping for a high-end laptop. Do you really need 8GB of RAM? Do you need an SSD of 256 GB? I'd say you probably need neither and would probably look at 4GB of RAM and an SSD of 128 GB.
Do you specifically want a Toshiba?
If you don't, this HP laptop is probably the same quality and some $500 cheaper after codes and rebates.
http://store.hp.com/...ontractId=10003
I don't know how anybody would get by with a 128GB drive... unless they're paying fees forever for cloud storage... I always needed more than that ever since about, um... the early '90's... and that had zilch to do with entertainment media...
256GB is as small as I would go, and even that's pushing it... because even if you're not intent on building a media library, there's always somethinig you wanna put on there anyway, whether it makes sense or not.... and, while there is tons of free cloud storage available, I'm not sure I'd trust the kind you don't have to pay for... (maybe that's being paranoid, but still...)
Extra RAM is cheap... with a fast SSD it matters less, but still... I think having 8 is a good thing, especially if he might not feel comfortable adding more later if he needs it...
I agree with you about the brand issue... Toshiba laptops are one of the last-ever things I had actual brand-loyalty to... I bought nothing but them for over a decade... until my bride had 2 in a row that had fatal issues about 10 minutes after the credit-card-doubled warranty ended... (this was about the same time that Michelin priced themselves out of me having brand loyalty to their tires... so the last two companies I had brand loyalty to arranged for me to get over it at about the same time...)
It's not that I wouldn't buy Toshiba these days, it's just that their name no longer means I would... and I fully agree HP can be had with great pricing if your time frame permits you to watch the pricing and coupons for a month or so...
"The only change is that baseball has turned Paige from a second-class citizen to a second-class immortal." - Satchel Paige
Fair-weather ex-diehard
Posted 02 July 2015 - 11:43 AM
If you want speed you need 8gb. 4 is the bare minimum for windows 8 and its painfully slow.
I disagree with that assessment. I have 4 GB for the computer I use at home for some gaming. It's fine speed-wise.
I'm with Matt on this one... if 8GB is painfully slow, then either (a) you have a slow mechanical HDD and are hitting it a lot and/or a snail cpu, (b) you have some rather non-typical usage patterns and/or requirements, or (c ) you've got some kind of crap on there that's slowing everything down... if none of a-c are true, 4GB should actually be fine... for the moment, anyway... but in a couple years, who knows?
"The only change is that baseball has turned Paige from a second-class citizen to a second-class immortal." - Satchel Paige
Fair-weather ex-diehard
Posted 02 July 2015 - 11:46 AM
But isn't fine a subjective thing? Might be ok for some people and not for others. I guess it's just preference, I just can't go from my 8GB to my wife's 4 GB, it's unbearable to me. Maybe I'm just too type A for my own good and too impatient.
In general, it's not subjective... in general, the threshhold for being annoyed by system slowness is repeated delays in response of about 3/4 of a second... if it's just a once-in-a-while delay, it goes up to a couple seconds...
But that's in general... for any given individual, it might be different...
"The only change is that baseball has turned Paige from a second-class citizen to a second-class immortal." - Satchel Paige
Moderator
Posted 02 July 2015 - 11:56 AM
You're right - probably not the processor. Guess you do a lot of stuff at once...
Yeah I think a lot of it is what you are running, big programs etc. I know she's got firefox, and office running all the time and those 2 eat up a lot of it.
Moderator
Posted 02 July 2015 - 11:57 AM
I'm with Matt on this one... if 4GB is painfully slow, then either (a) you have a slow mechanical HDD and are hitting it a lot and/or a snail cpu, (b) you have some rather non-typical usage patterns and/or requirements, or (c ) you've got some kind of crap on there that's slowing everything down... if none of a-c are true, 4GB should actually be fine... for the moment, anyway... but in a couple years, who knows?
Go look at how much of that 4GB windows 8 uses, and then get back to me 
Fair-weather ex-diehard
Posted 02 July 2015 - 12:21 PM
Go look at how much of that 4GB windows 8 uses, and then get back to me
Doesn't matter... system responsiveness is what matters...
BTW, I agree with his idea of getting 8GB....
"The only change is that baseball has turned Paige from a second-class citizen to a second-class immortal." - Satchel Paige
Fair-weather ex-diehard
Posted 02 July 2015 - 12:39 PM
Yeah I think a lot of it is what you are running, big programs etc. I know she's got firefox, and office running all the time and those 2 eat up a lot of it.
If she's doing nothing but Office and Firefox... and if she doesn't have 43 Firefox tabs open at once... and if that's painfully slow with 4GB, then something is wrong besides a RAM-shortage...
Now, maybe more RAM might mitigate it, but RAM's not why it's happening... slow and/or old cpu, slow mechanical disk with lots of disk hits, crapware (or other software issues) eatinig resources... one or more of those are the culprits... does rebooting fix it temporarily?
"The only change is that baseball has turned Paige from a second-class citizen to a second-class immortal." - Satchel Paige
Moderator
Posted 02 July 2015 - 12:58 PM
If she's doing nothing but Office and Firefox... and if she doesn't have 43 Firefox tabs open at once... and if that's painfully slow with 4GB, then something is wrong besides a RAM-shortage...
Now, maybe more RAM might mitigate it, but RAM's not why it's happening... slow and/or old cpu, slow mechanical disk with lots of disk hits, crapware (or other software issues) eatinig resources... one or more of those are the culprits... does rebooting fix it temporarily?
Nah, it's been like that out of the box. I also gut all the pre-loaded stuff during set up, so it's not that stuff. Like I was telling Matt, maybe it's just me because I compare mine to hers, but it was like come ON already when I tried to use hers one day.
Not that mine is top of the line or anything, but I built it to be able to run QB, Excel, Word, Firefox (3-4tabs) and remote connection without any slowdown. Hers I was getting irritated with just Word, and Firefox with 2 tabs.
I'm eventually going to switch her over to SSD too, but not a big priority, so I've been dragging my feet on it. She uses her ipad for 80% at home, it's just when she actually has to do some work or wants to transfer pics from our DSLR to facebook.
Fair-weather ex-diehard
Posted 02 July 2015 - 01:16 PM
Hers I was getting irritated with just Word, and Firefox with 2 tabs.
That's not right... something's wrong... that sounds like 2GB, not 4GB....
When you nuked the crapware, did you do it manually or did you use software to both nuke and disinfect?
Do we know what malwarebytes has to say?
Do we know what passmark has to say?
"The only change is that baseball has turned Paige from a second-class citizen to a second-class immortal." - Satchel Paige
Moderator
Posted 02 July 2015 - 01:28 PM
I shut it down by hand, I've been doing it for years.
I tried a couple different people's 4GB laptops and they were all about similar speed. It's just really slow to me. Like I said, I might just be a little bit of elitism on my part.
I have a desktop at a client site that has 16GB of RAM and a 3.7ghz processor and is so full of junk and bloatware that it's much slower than mine.
I'll get back to you after I tweak hers a bit and see if it's the HDD dragging it down, it's mostly just the slag when starting a program that's bothering me, once they are open and running it's more manageable.
Sr. Terps Analyst
Posted 02 July 2015 - 01:29 PM
I don't know much about the inner workings of computers, but I got a 13" MacBook Pro back in 2009. The thing still runs like new, and I've never had a problem. Never. I upgraded it with 8GB of RAM and a Solid State HD a few years back. 6 years later, it still runs the most up-to-date version of Mac's OS, and I see no reason to upgrade anytime soon. Other people in my family have been through 2-3 Windows laptops in this time. Spend the money and get a Mac. It's always worth it.
HOF
Posted 02 July 2015 - 01:33 PM
HOF
Posted 02 July 2015 - 01:33 PM
Yeah I think a lot of it is what you are running, big programs etc. I know she's got firefox, and office running all the time and those 2 eat up a lot of it.
That's not a lot of stuff.
HOF
Posted 02 July 2015 - 01:42 PM
I don't know how anybody would get by with a 128GB drive... unless they're paying fees forever for cloud storage... I always needed more than that ever since about, um... the early '90's... and that had zilch to do with entertainment media...
You sure about that?
My work computer has a 256 GB drive and I use about 110 GB of that. I don't have any media on this computer (obviously) but I have some pretty large data files.
Moderator
Posted 02 July 2015 - 02:04 PM
That's not a lot of stuff.
Yeah I know, but for instance, my Firefox is using almost a GB of my memory, and overall I'm at 32% of my 8GB, and I'm not really running much, just excel, firefox and remote access. On hers that would be what 64% ish? That's a lot of bogging down. I'll have to run the stats next time I play on hers and see what they look like.
HOF
Posted 02 July 2015 - 02:13 PM
Yeah I know, but for instance, my Firefox is using almost a GB of my memory, and overall I'm at 32% of my 8GB, and I'm not really running much, just excel, firefox and remote access. On hers that would be what 64% ish? That's a lot of bogging down. I'll have to run the stats next time I play on hers and see what they look like.
I don't think it's a linear relationship. If you have more RAM then your computer will use it to some extent. Of course, there's a limit to how much is useful.
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