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New RAM memory for laptop

S

starbuck

pfm Member
I am wanting to purchase an 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 RAM memory kit for a Lenovo T410 laptop, to increase it from the 4GB (2 x 2GB) currently installed to try and speed it up a bit. Crucial is a brand name that is coming up when searching the internet but I just wondered if there is/are others to consider and if buying from marketplace sellers (with dispatch by Amazon) on Amazon is an okay source to purchase from (about £32 compared to about £55 if purchased direct from Crucial)?

Thanks in advance.
 
Crucial is an OK brand, I regularly buy memory directly from their website or directly from Amazon themselves

Personally I wouldn't buy from eBay or Amazon Marketplace. I have had fakes (batteries) from both.
 
Thanks for the replies. I think the laptop already has an SSD drive although maybe only 250GB, I would need to check to be sure. Looking at the settings on my laptop tells me I have only 23.8GB free and have used 87.2GB, so I guess that increasing hard drive space would be good to do anyway, irrespective of whether I already have an SSD installed.
 
Just checked and it is actually a 120GB SSD installed, so even less than I thought. Replacing with a new 500GB SSD would improve speed? I have recently started replaying music ripped to the laptop via a Linn Sneaky Music DS, wirelessly from the laptop over the network router to which the Linn is connected, and I've noticed that the laptop runs slower whilst also playing music.
 
I don’t think a larger SSD would improve speed, unless maybe the old one is almost full. Perhaps a newer SSD would be faster?

I think fitting as much suitable RAM as possible, if cheap enough, is a good idea. I suppose it’ll depend on the motherboard etc.
Do Crucial still have the feature on their website that analyses your lappy and tells you what’s suitable?
 
Thanks, yes, maximising RAM was my first instinct and Crucial's website (confirmed by a more general search) indicated 2 x 4GB is the most the T410 will accommodate. I just found the scanner you mention on their site and was offered a slight reduction on their purchase price after running it, which brings it closer to Amazon marketplace pricing. I may well go for both more RAM and a larger hard drive given that SSD memory is so much cheaper than it was when I got the laptop back in 2015 and that I now want to rip more CDs to it. I will eventually go the NAS route for music storage but am happy with it as it is for the time being.
 
Little point buying new DDR3 IMHO when there is plenty of used available on ebay.

Any reliable brand at the max refresh rate your pc can run is what to go for. Check what it can run in the manual, it may be possible to run faster than what is currently installed.
 
cobbers said:
I would clone and fit an SSD too - very little improvement would be got from doubling RAM.
Click to expand...

Depends what Windows/OS is he running on it. If it was updated to Win10 and there are few programs running on it easy can consume 4GB of Ram.
I would say most of the time doubling memory can reduce of use virtual memory what can reduce use of SDD.
But like always to be sure if it makes sense you need to check what is going now.
The best costless way to improve a speed of your laptop is to remove apps running in background, switch off services which you don't really need like Google Updates and all similar sh..., go through the task scheduler and disable ones which are doing nothing, switch of indexing service on all your SDD/HDD.
There is a long list of tricks which can help you.
Always start with good cleaning, you wouldn't believe how often you can easily make you computer running better with simply cleaning off a bloody dust cloud collected inside for years.
It's plenty of good reading on internet if you have got time and never done it yourself before.
Other way just find a sensible local expert and he will do it for you.
I saved tens of different computers, which were OIW to a bin, just by giving a good service to them.
 
colasblue said:
Little point buying new DDR3 IMHO when there is plenty of used available on ebay.

Any reliable brand at the max refresh rate your pc can run is what to go for. Check what it can run in the manual, it may be possible to run faster than what is currently installed.
Click to expand...

DDR3 is an old type of RAM, plenty of second hand modules.
 
a new SSD will not improve speed if you have one fitted already, you laptop is dual core so will slow down if playing music and trying to do other tasks, More memory may help a little but also worth looking at your task manager to see if any programs can be stopped from running at startup.

Rgds
Stuart
 
I would also look carefully at what is running constantly - I had an Acer lappy a few years ago that was full of installed junk software - clearing it out made a significant difference to speed.
Have a 2016 i5 HP now that I upgraded the SSD from 256 to 500 and from single channel RAM to dual - perfectly adequate but no noticeable improvement in performance.
 
stony said:
Depends what Windows/OS is he running on it. If it was updated to Win10 and there are few programs running on it easy can consume 4GB of Ram.
I would say most of the time doubling memory can reduce of use virtual memory what can reduce use of SDD.
But like always to be sure if it makes sense you need to check what is going now.
The best costless way to improve a speed of your laptop is to remove apps running in background, switch off services which you don't really need like Google Updates and all similar sh..., go through the task scheduler and disable ones which are doing nothing, switch of indexing service on all your SDD/HDD.
There is a long list of tricks which can help you.
Always start with good cleaning, you wouldn't believe how often you can easily make you computer running better with simply cleaning off a bloody dust cloud collected inside for years.
It's plenty of good reading on internet if you have got time and never done it yourself before.
Other way just find a sensible local expert and he will do it for you.
I saved tens of different computers, which were OIW to a bin, just by giving a good service to them.
Click to expand...
^^^ This is solid advice.

A new SSD will be a good investment such as something like this one Kingston SSDNow A400 240GB SATA 3 Solid State Drive (SA400S37/240G), Black : Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories yes I have used several.

Also I agree with increasing the RAM to 8GB and will as stated above reduce use of the SSD and a smaller pagefile.sys giving it a longer life and a faster performance. I have had T.410s on the work bench and they are snappy performers for usual office stuff with both Linux and Win 10. Depending on the manufacture date those with a newer BIOS that can support a GPT disk (many can't) it becomes possible to run Win 11 on it.

With PCs I find for some reason that its the ladies who fill up the system with crap and the computer slows to a crawl. Even my youngest was complaining that her Macbook Air was 'dying'. That was 3 years ago and since I cleaned it up its been working just fine. Worse happened to a T.410 That was running Win 10 Pro. It was unusable as it was so slow. Turned out it was making calls all over the Internet and after a clean was back to its snappy self.

DV
 
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Run a full AV scan, and make sure it isn't sluggish because of malware - somebody might be running a crypto miner on your machine! Ideally, use something that can do root kit detection.
 
4 GB is just not enough for Windows these days. It will be swapping like crazy.
I have 16 GB, but run CAD apps.
2x4 GB is enough for most users. Don't get a single 8 GB module, many processors benefit from two memory lanes
 
Typing this on a T410 running W11, Office 365, Edge and a couple of minor apps. I generally hovver around 6GB in use (of 8GB). I bought it NOS 10 years ago with 2GB and replaced that immediately with some random 2x4GB DDR3 SODIMMs. I wouldn't sweat the brand of RAM.
 
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