I wonder what the impact on best spec is from having a lot of open windows.

[mitch9913]

I am looking to buy a new laptop and want to conquer a slowness issue that might be caused by the way I use it. As a researcher I often have 12 or more web pages open (using Firefox) plus 3 to 6 MS Office windows (mostly Word and Excel, but sometimes PPoint) and very little in graphics other than what is on web pages, minimal use of video or streaming. My existing HP laptop (2GB Ram 350 HDD with 53% usage, Athlon DC M300 2Ghz; Windows 7 with all updates) can be very slow loading a page or switching app's. AVG says I am virus free, and Windows Experience Index is 4.1 (which I sincerely doubt given the slowness issue) Do i need more RAM; better motherboard? What if I need to use video or more streaming as this seems to be the way forward. Thoughts ?
Thanks
Mitch

 

[Someone Somewhere]

RAM is number one in that situation.

Depending on what browser you're using, a new CPU (which will likely mean new laptop) may be in order.

 

[Wisecracker]

You certainly could use some more RAMs. Win7 with AVG in the background, FF with massive tabs and an open office suite would be quite a resource hog. You're likely hitting the page file frequently, and on a laptop 5400rpm HDD, that's not good.

2GB DDR2 SoDIMMs are actually quite reasonably priced, but if you have 2x1GB sticks you will likely have to toss them and purchase a 2X2GB kit (likely around $50). A single 4GB stick is likely twice that, and double it again for a 2x4GB kit.

If it were me, I'd snag a 2x2GB kit for around $50, a Samsung 120GB SSD (Solid State Drive) for around $80, and a Vantec USB External Drive Enclosure for around $10.

Cut-n-Paste up all your critical data to a thumb-drive, pop the SSD into the external enclosure, and use the Samsung Data Migration Tool to clone your current OS and Apps.

Swap-out the SSD for the laptop HDD and away you go. Pop the HDD into the external enclosure to use for storage and back-ups.