increasing laptop ram

[sheriffjonny]

Hi guys, my gf's laptop is acting very slowly indeed. Here's the specs: e machines m5118-g1
celeron(R) cpu 2.50ghz
480mb ram
40gb hd
windows xp service pack 3
This laptop is so slow its unbelievable, when it was first bought a couple of years ago it was pretty quick but now its painfully slow.
What can i do? SHe uses it for mainly facebook and browsing the internet.
If i have to i will increase the ram, but i have never put extra ram in a laptop and i don't even know if or how much ram i can put in it.
I need your help guys or otherwise its a new laptop bill

[cksboy15]

have you defragged it? cleared the cookies? run the disk cleanup?

Even the windows defragger and cleanup utilities can help. A memory upgrade is probably a good idea if you haven't ran those, but to know how much memory it can hold you'd have to search around. I'm guessing it can't hold more than 1024mbs or 1gb.

[sheriffjonny]

its been defragged, i've run disk cleanup, by clearing the cookines do you mean going to internet options and deleting everything, all browsing history etc?

[cksboy15]

That works or you could type "cookies" into run (located in the start menu) and delete everything except for "idex" which sometimes doesn't even appear.

[Aaron_8015]

Defrag and cleaning out temp files etc... will help. A memory upgrade would be a good idea, I find 1gb works well with xp.

Here is the link to the memory it can take, maximum of 2gb (2x1gb).

Computer memory upgrades for eMachines M5100 Laptop/Notebook from Crucial.com

[sheriffjonny]

ok i think i'll get another 512 stick to go in there, but is it easy to add another stick to a laptop

[Aaron_8015]

Yes very. If you look on the bottom there is usualy two panels one contains RAM the other is usualy wireless card. Unscrew, open, insert, done.

[sheriffjonny]

ok thaks for that, but now i'm onto my mum's laptop which is also not running very fast, itas a higrade laptop running vista ultimate, i opened it up and it seems as if it has 1 gig of ram but on the vista system screen on the desktop it says it has onlt half of that, whats this all about?

[Aaron_8015]

i opened it up and it seems as if it has 1 gig of ram

When you say it seems, did it say 1024 or something similar on the modual? Where are you looking that states it only has 512?

What is make and model of this laptop?

[sheriffjonny]

there was 1 stcik which had 4 modules, on one bank of two modules it had a sticker saying 512mb also when it starts up on the screen it says what the system is, and it says 1024 ram, then once vista has propely loaded up on the welcome screen it says it has only 480mb or something like that

[Aaron_8015]

Okay, download and run that, then go to memory tab.

CPUID

Also go into display properties and look how much ram your video card is using.

screen shots of both would be helpfull.

[RicheemxX]

Aside from running disk cleanup, defrag and clearing cookies you also want to make sure you have checked for spyware/adware and viruses. You'll also want to dump any junk/bloatware that might have been installed over the years.

[cksboy15]

the reason you see 480mb is that whatever you don't see is being used by the onboard memory.

[Aaron_8015]

the reason you see 480mb is that whatever you don'e see is being used by the on board memory.

Exactly I imagine it is just a 512mb stick with 32mb going to the video.

[RandomNameHere]

PC Decrapifier

Gets rid of the bloatware that comes installed with your copy of windows.
Might help a little.

[sworst]

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