PC issue driving me nuts

[MartyG]

My laptop purchased in Sept last year had this enabled, however only for 'PC's on the same network', rather than 'PCs on the same network, and PCs on the internet'. Even so useful to know and ty for the tip.

That option is probably worthwhile if you have more than one machine on a local network at home - otherwise you're just burning extra internet bandwidth for each PC.

[importaku]

it happened again i managed to get the task manager opened before my pc fully locked up. I have narrowed it down to the memory when i checked the memory free was zero as it was maxed out & struggled to do anything. I only have 4 gig of ram in this pc as it's pretty old it seems something is stealing all of it. Is there any way i can configure so my pc uses it a bit better? I'm totally in the dark with this level of tweaking.

[Hohum]

You'd need to know what process would be using it up first. Perhaps take a screenshot next time so we can have a look.

[importaku]

You'd need to know what process would be using it up first. Perhaps take a screenshot next time so we can have a look.

Yeah this is the problem im going to have, trying to look for stuff while it's happening but when all the memory goes it takes like 5 mins just to minimise a window or try and open a program. I was lucky as this time i managed to get the task manager up and get to the screen that shows memory & cpu use. The cpu was pretty much at zero yet the memory use was at 100% i think the easiest way to fix it might be just to cough up for 8 gig of ram instead of the single stick of 4 it has inside it at the moment as i used speccy to check what i had in my machine and it's saying 1 slot is free so im guessing it's only a single stick in there. I see that ram prices are pretty expensive i thought they might be like with hard disks and flash drives where the price comes down but even 16 gig of ram is stupidly expensive for what it is. Not eve sure if windows 7 needs that much of weither 8 is more suitable.

[speedlolita]

Depending on the age of the RAM an upgrade could be dirt cheap. DDR3 costs an insignificant amount from CeX, £10 for a 4GB stick.

Can't really compare memory and storage pricing either.

[importaku]

certainly wasnt that price on amazon it was £40-50 for 8 gig

[speedlolita]

Well, that's new. But yeah that's about what I'd expect to pay for 8GB of DDR3 or DDR4 currently. My 16GB kit cost north of £100, just how it is I'm afraid. There was a point a few years back that you could get a 16GB kit of DDR3 for like 50 quid though.

[importaku]

For someone who isn't really going hardcore gaming would 8 gig be enough for my pc's general running needs?

[speedlolita]

Absolutely. 16GB really isn’t necessary, I’m never going above 8GB of RAM usage. The only time that has ever happened is when I was rendering a video with the MMO I was playing at the time running.

[Hohum]

Well, that's new. But yeah that's about what I'd expect to pay for 8GB of DDR3 or DDR4 currently. My 16GB kit cost north of £100, just how it is I'm afraid. There was a point a few years back that you could get a 16GB kit of DDR3 for like 50 quid though.

I didn't buy it at the time because I just didn't need it, but at one point Amazon had 16GB DDR3 kits listed for £38 quid! That feels like a long time ago now though. That said, I've found 8GB to be more than enough for my usage.

Not entirely sure what's going on with importaku's PC, as I wouldn't expect crippling slowdowns like that even with 4GB... perhaps consider a clean install of Windows with latest drivers if it proves a pain to solve.