Laptop - worth increasing RAM?

[Paul]

That processor *does not* have dual channel.

It has one bus and two DIMM slots.

Memory channels: 1

DIMMs per channel: 2

Paul

[polygonum_on_google]

On my current notebook, which has 8GB and is running 64-bit W10, 414 MB is reserved by hardware.

And Task Manager shows 7.8 GB is in use. Just doing browsing, and a couple of Office apps.

Whether you have a graphics card with its own memory - or not - is something that might well affect whether more memory makes much of a difference.

I upgraded my desktop from 8 GB to 16 GB - and, despite it having a graphics card with its own memory, performance improved significantly. More or less, the times when it seemed a bit slow have been resolved. Pretty obviously due to not needing swap and/or making use of cache.

Both machines have SSD.

[Robert]

Though always back them up as

+1 When they fail they just stop working, unlike normal HDD which often start giving errors which allows you to panic do a repair and back up before total failure.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Here on linux mint, I have browser, thunderbird, and an open Libre Office writer session going, and its just 3,2GB - with another 3GB disk cache.

Latest Firefox seems to have fixed the memory leak.

got a nviada fanless with a GB of RAM I think

Well that's windows for you. Designed to sell hardware.

[The Natural Philosopher]

-1000 - mine have never failed catastrophically. started giving errors.

[RJH]

Why does Firefox use so much memory - over 1GB on a Mac? Chrome (my main browser) and Safari use 100-200MB.

[jon]

My computer very rarely exceeds 2GB ram usage.....

[mechanic]

Marketers don't see saving a few hundred MB of system memory as an important objective. Most laptops are sold with at least 4GB and typically 8. If the memory is there, why wouldn't the apps use it?

[Fredxx]

Useful - thanks

[RJH]

Well, yes of course, agreed. But why does Firefox use so much more for doing (AFAICT) the same thing?

[alan_m]

Could be cached information which may/will depend on sites visited and if configured to clear cache data when shut down?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Firefox uses about 500MB plus about 200Mbyte per page opened

Its javaScript is also abominably slow

[John Rumm]

That's not been my typical experience. Most of them I have been able to recover at least most of the data.

I have had some where access to particular files becomes very slow, and some where you lose access to some files, but most of the disk seems to work normally.

I have had one that would randomly lock up its SATA bus (and the machine it was connected to) every few minutes. (I was able to recover the stuff from that in several attempts with it mounted in a USB enclosure).

I have had a couple that simply "vanished" and stopped being identifiable as a drive. One I was able to fix by applying some flux to the main controller chip, and reflowing it with hot air. Got it working long enough to recover the data.

[John Rumm]

Perhaps the question could be reframed as why do modern web pages need so much memory to render? Part of the answer is that web designers don't often seem to put much effort into reducing memory use any more, but mostly the amount of background "crap"[1] that is loaded by the average web page is now *vast*

[1] tracking, analytics, profiling, marketing - not uncommon for an almost empty looking page to come with 100's of megs of stuff you can't see.

[John Rumm]

Compared to what?

The current crop of browsers are all pretty much in same ballpark on js speed. If you run a bunch of benchmarks on them all, then they will each "win" some tests.

(in fact the latest incarnation of Edge (based on Chromium) frequently beats Chrome).

[Michael Chare]

I think in my case the figure before the slash + the cached + physical = figure after cached.

But I have now found that the Crucial DDR4-3600 16-18-18 16GB modules are out of stock everwhere in UK. I wonder why. I will learn more tomorrow by using the Crucial chat.

[polygonum_on_google]

Couldn't agree more.

A site I use often has just had its website re-re-written.

Version 1: A bit creaky but fast and simple - well over ten years old. In all its life, hardly a single technical issue ever reported.

Version 2: Rewritten using WordPress in some guise. Much slower. Lots of silly issues. Massive images - unnecessary as they were just used to add flavour not information. Imagine this NG having random pictures of workshops, paint, gardens, etc. uBlock Origin continually showing things blocked - despite there not being a single intentional advert on the site.

Version 3: Person who offered to sort out Version 2 more or less gave up as it was a terminal case. Completely re-written in something like the plain style of gov.uk. Superfast. uBlock Origin blocks nothing - as there is nothing which should be blocked. Haven't checked memory usage but its bandwidth must be modest. Things like a link to their facebook page is just that - a simple link. Not some huge script.

It is immensely frustrating that the web seems to get slower simply because of the huge burden being placed on it - unnecessarily.

[alan_m]

TOT but Salus seem to have updated their web pages

Can anyone scroll down this page (and scroll down others from the links)? I don't seem to be able to do it with Firefox of Edge.

Salus make CH controls room thermostats etc.

[Andy Burns]

Fine with current firefox here

[Jeff Layman]

No problem with Pale Moon 28.17.0 (x64)