If I have to buy another laptop- memory question

rfuerst911sc · 08-19-2007, 12:49 PM

My Dell Lattitude took a dump last week and is in the shop for a repair estimate. If it is too much to repair I'll have to buy another. My question is I'm potentially looking at a Gateway with Intel Dual-Core processor with 1024mb of RAM and 160GB hard drive. I've heard the new Windows Vista is memory hungry so is 1024mb enough? Any thoughts on the latest laptops from Gateway? I'm useing my wifes Gateway to type this and it's been a good machine for the year she's owned it. I bought the Dell as a business lease turn in so it was relatively cheap. What about Toshibas? My use is mostly email,web surfing,sending digital pics and occasionally an Excel or Word doc. So what are you guys useing?

azasadny · azasadny's Garage

I have a Dell Ispiron 9400 with 2GB of RAM and it runs Windows XP Pro very well. I am not running Vista because our VPN software will not work with it. 1GB of RAM is fine as long as you still have one memory slot available in case you want to add another GB at a later time.

Joeaksa · 08-19-2007, 01:37 PM

Would put a minimum of 2 gig if I were going to run Vista. That said I would not run Vista for another 6 months to 1 year MIMIMUM! Microsoft debugs their software in the field, not in the lab at home. Wait at least until the first service pack is out before using it.

I have a brand new Dell and using XP with it. It will stay that way until Vista is debugged and at least 2 SP's are out for the new OS.

As Art says, if you are going with 1 gig, get a 1 gig chip and leave a space open. That way you can put an additional 1 gig chip in later on. Personally I would put 2 one gig chips in and be done with it. A 160 gig hd should be fine but if they sell a 7200 rpm version pay extra for it. You will be happy that you did.

rfuerst911sc · 08-19-2007, 02:09 PM

Looks like all new machines are coming loaded with Vista, can you have the store load XP in place of? My Dell only has 384mb but ran fine with XP..................or at least it did.

azasadny · azasadny's Garage

Dell put WinXP on my laptop because I asked them to. I wiped out the hard-disk and reloaded WinXP when I got the PC because I like to do a "clean" install... Memory is cheap and the more memory, the better (up to a point). My laptop max'es out at 2GB.

Halm · 08-19-2007, 04:50 PM

My only computer joke: What's the difference between a Gateway and a trampoline? You take your shoes off for the trampoline!

I would never, ever allow a client to buy Gateway. Pure garbage. There are some higher end Toshiba's that are pretty nice. For overall rock solid performance, but not bleeding edge technology, stay with a Latitude.

Be careful what you buy. Some of the new Dell models don't have XP drivers. The D630 has both drivers. And I agree with Art, FDISK and start fresh.

No matter what you buy, be ready to go to 4 Gb of ram at some point. We just got a new XPS M1330 (Vista only drivers) and it came with 2 Gb of ram. It was a really nice box at that point. We have a presentation next week and the app we want demo requires 3 Gb, so we went to Crucial (much cheaper than Dell) and bought the 4 Gb kit. In my 11 years as an IT consultant, I have not seen such an improvement. Other things to consider are a 7,200 RPM hard drive and a dedicated video card versus one on the motherboard.

HTH

id10t · 08-19-2007, 06:37 PM

More RAM is always better, if anything it (should) keep the OS from using disk space as swap, which will drain battery life more than filling RAM... with Vista though, you just need as much as you can get, and you will still use a lot of swap.

Joeaksa · 08-20-2007, 12:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rfuerst911sc

Looks like all new machines are coming loaded with Vista, can you have the store load XP in place of? My Dell only has 384mb but ran fine with XP..................or at least it did.

You can still request (or at least you could a month ago) that your machine be loaded with XP. Would do so until the first service pack is out from MS.

rcecale · rcecale's Garage

'nuff said!

Randy

onewhippedpuppy · 08-20-2007, 05:04 AM

What Joe said. If you can possibly do so, avoid Vista. If you get it, 2 gb ram minimim. My in-laws have a new Dell dual core with 2gb ram, I think it runs slower than my old computers on XP.

I have a Gateway laptop, over 1 year with no issues. By now my old HP laptop had already been through two backlights. What a POS that was.

Joeaksa · 08-20-2007, 06:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Halm

No matter what you buy, be ready to go to 4 Gb of ram at some point. We just got a new XPS M1330 (Vista only drivers) and it came with 2 Gb of ram. It was a really nice box at that point. We have a presentation next week and the app we want demo requires 3 Gb, so we went to Crucial (much cheaper than Dell) and bought the 4 Gb kit. In my 11 years as an IT consultant, I have not seen such an improvement. Other things to consider are a 7,200 RPM hard drive and a dedicated video card versus one on the motherboard.

HTH

Hal,

I have a new Dell dual core laptop, with a 120 gig 5400 rpm drive, running 2 gig RAM. Do you really think that its worth going up to 4 gig of RAM? Think that I would see that much difference in the performance?

Agree totally on the 7200 rpm drive. Had one in a earlier Dell laptop and it cut the boot up time by 50% over the 7200 rpm version.

Rot 911 · 08-20-2007, 06:44 AM

I bought a new Toshiba laptop and went with 2 gig or RAM for Vista. I have heard from people using only 1 gig with Vista and have had problems. I have been running Vista for 6 months now with no problems.

Hard to believe you would need 2 gig of RAM to run any program when I remember when 10 meg of memory seemed like more memory than I would ever need on a computer.

Halm · 08-20-2007, 07:10 AM

Joe, the new XPS we got was also a dual core (2.0GHz) with 2 Gb RAM and a 120 Gb (5,400RPM) system. The upgrade to 4 Gb was really dramatic. And with your background and needs, I think you would appreciate it too.

But before you buy the extra RAM, are you running Aero? If so, do you have a dedicated video card? Try turning Aero off and see what performance gain you get. Yeah, you lose the fancy / wow bang interface, but you should see a nice bump in overall performance too. Aero HAMMERS the CPU. even with a dedicated video card.

FWIW, I have an even faster XPS on order: 2.2 Ghz, and a 200Gb, 7,200RPM drive. Should be here in a month or so. I'll report back on it when I get it.

gr8fl4porsche · gr8fl4porsche's Garage

I recently tried to order a notebook from Dell - they will not load xp onto the new machines. They do offer some older prepackaged machines with xp on them.

onewhippedpuppy · 08-20-2007, 02:52 PM

Hal, what is AERO?

Halm · 08-20-2007, 04:16 PM

Matt, that is actually a great question and I am not sure how to describe it in 50 words or less. Aero is the new "interface" for Vista. It is translucent so you can see through Windows on top of each other and it gives you, theoretically, more control. My 4 year old Latitude doesn't support it so I don't have enough quality time with it to say other than it is really neat. . . But not required.

Joeaksa · 10:13 PM

Hal,

Ok, will bite. How in the world do you tell if you are running Aero? No only did I not know about it (had heard the name but thats it) but had not fussed with it as I will not be worrying about Vista for a long time. The laptop is a 5 month old Dell E1705/9400 with a dual core 1.8 gig processor with a Intel 945 video chip.

Thx for the reply. Am still overseas but once I get home will look into getting two 2 gig memory sticks for the computer. Anyone need two 1 gig memory sticks?

joe

EDIT, just did some looking around the internet and believe that AERO comes only with Vista? If so, I do not have AERO on any computer I own until the first service pack comes out. Still running XP, the media version.

Halm · 08-21-2007, 03:35 AM

Joe, Aero is a Vista only feature. You get to it by right clicking the screen and "Personalize." Go to "Window Color and Appearance" and then "Appearance Settings." Select the Aero theme.

Aero requires certain hardware and the standard embedded video card like yours is not supported. . . I have the same thing in my Latitude. Also, if you are still on XP, I doubt you will see much of a performance gain by adding another 2 Gb of RAM.

We are running Vista only because one of our favorite clients has asked us to "train the trainers" later this fall as they will start rolling it out in January for certain users. On my older hardware, I don't like it very much. On my partners new XPS, it really sings. We kind of fight over who gets to use the newer PC. We are just starting to test application compatibility so I can't comment on that. But for basic "Office" applications, and other business applications so far it has been fine. The software for burning CD's that came with the XPS works great and a few other utilities we like do too. But again, that is far from declaring it ready for prime time.

HTH

onewhippedpuppy · 08-21-2007, 05:15 AM

Thanks Hal, I still have XP so it's not a worry for me.

osidak · 08-21-2007, 06:54 AM

i have played with aero and it is neat but nothing to go crazy about

just bought a lenovo t61 for a customer. dual core 2 ghz loaded with vista business. with 1 gig of ram it sucked. 2 gigs and she is really happy.

personally i am a big fan of the Lenovo/IBM Thinkpads. My personal laptop is a T60 dual core 1.8 ghz with 3 gigs of ram. Running XP on it though.