Should a buy a new computer for college or upgrade RAM on the one I already own?

[J_Chiocca]

Hello everyone,

Recently I adopted a family computer for use in college. Before I describe the exact problem allow me to briefly introduce the computer so you may better understand the problem.

It is a ThinkPad E555 here are the specs:

AMD A8-7100 1.8 Ghz (4 threads in task manager)
4 GB 1600 Mhz DDR3
"Radeon R5" (Part of APU)
300 GB hard drive (Don't know what the speed is but it isn't awfully fast)
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

I reformatted the computer when I had acquired it and it appeared to work great until I tried to use the internet. The internal wireless adapter must have been faulty, it kept disconnecting and was so slow that it was unusable (most of the time after 15 minutes I would have to restart the computer to use the internet). So I bought a USB wireless adapter off of Amazon which works pretty well (says I got 72 MBps and works accordingly). The internet was at least fixed.

I started installing my basic programs Google Chrome, Word, ect. After I had installed some I opened Google Chrome (2 tabs or so) Word and the file browser and the computer became frustratingly slow. (Constantly becoming unresponsive). I opened task manager and found the physical memory usage was nearly full (usage bar around 90-95% or so). I am lead to believe this means I need more RAM, correct me if I am wrong.

So here is my question should I buy some more RAM for my computer or simply buy a new computer?

I am a little confused as to what course of action I should pursue; RAM is pretty cheap now and at the moment I only need the computer for writing papers and doing online homework (Web-assign, Turnitin, Blackboard, ect...) but I feel as though opening 2 or 3 tabs in Google Chrome should be something my computer should at least be able to do without freezing up. On the other hand however computers have become a lot cheaper and picking up a secondhand ThinkPad with a 2nd Gen Core i5 isn't every expensive either. My major is engineering so later (at some point in the future) I may need to use (light) 3D modeling programs.

Thanks in advance,

J_Chiocca

*On a side note the CPU rarely seems to go over 10% usage even with multiple applications open so it seems like to me like there is a bottleneck somewhere in the system

 

[RaDiKaL_]

Certainly extra RAM would help. However even with just 4GB of ram you should be able to have word + web browser at a decent pace.

Check your CPU temps, if its overheating it will throttle itself down which could explain your situation.

A failing HDD could also explain your situation, you could test its speed with HDTach and its state with some SMART reading program like AIDA64.

 

[J_Chiocca]

Hi Radikal,

It is good to know that 4GB should be enough, I thought as much that is why I decided to post before I bought anything. I will do a benchmark when I get home and record the temps as well examine the computer's speed and usability. I will also perform the speed test you suggested.

Will post results soon.

The computer was passed down to me from my mom who complained it was too slow, she had bought it refurbished from Lenovo not too long ago and so this complaint surprised me. We have had the computer for less than a year.

If the computer is thermally throttling what are my options? I remember a couple years back my brother's computer (Compaq Presario CQ56) had kept shutting off due to temperatures. I opened it up and replaced the OEM thermal paste with some aftermarket ceramic thermal paste I had sitting around and it fixed the problem and made it run faster, would this perhaps be an option for my situation?

 

[RaDiKaL_]

Hi, yes, for a thermal issue the solution is to clean inside of it all dust and renew the thermal paste, hopefully that's the only issue. Lets see what results you get from the tests.

 

[J_Chiocca]

Update: Thermal test is done.

When I first started up HWMonitor my temps were at 95 C. I ran Heavy Load for an hour with both CPU and Graphics stress on, within 15 minutes my temperature reached 109 C at which point the cores then reduced speed to 1300 Mhz. Graphics card reached 60 C. Temps remained at these values for the duration of the test.

I closed heavy load after shutting it down and then opened a couple tabs in Chrome, they all opened fairly quickly... The temps seem to settle at around 101 C.

Strange I expected it to lag as I had observed before, I will do a disk test soon.

 

[RaDiKaL_]

Now those temps are really high for your CPU, most likely a misreading since it should have shutdown by its own at those levels, however the fact that it throttled down points to a high temp problem so proceed with cleaning all dust and replacing the thermal paste.

 

[J_Chiocca]

I agree, when I had a my desktop computer the temperatures never went over 50 C. I will open it up soon and report the results.

As you suggested I have preformed the hard drive speed test and a S.M.A.R.T. test. Here are the results:

and

 

[RaDiKaL_]

Well the HDD seems ok, though its average reading speed could be higher. If the cleaning and changing of thermal paste is enough to get the PC to a decent speed, you could consider investing on a SSD depending on your budget.

 

[J_Chiocca]

Alright well I changed the thermal paste and cleaned out any dust that was inside (although there really didn't appear to be much, I used compressed air to be safe). I also broke it in for a couple of hours.

The temps are marginally better, it idles at 89 - 90 C (Although again as you mentioned earlier this cannot be totally accurate). Despite these inaccurate readings that is a delta change of 5 degrees. Even with Chrome and three tabs it stays at 91 C. Under heavy load it gets to around 105. I have also observed when the load is cut it cools down much more rapidly than before.

Most importantly the cores now spike up to 2600 Mhz when a load is applied, I have noticed the computer is overall more responsive.


Not the dramatic 10 C change I was hoping for but I would say the computer is usable. It does not hang anymore.


Thanks RaDiKaL_ if I decide to upgrade I will choose the SSD then RAM priority you suggested.

 

[RaDiKaL_]

Good to see you're getting a stable clock in your CPU, I forgot about your RAM amount so yeah, first get those extra 4GB and then the SSD.