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Ram upgrade, possible problem
Ninehigh - 15/11/09 at 10:48 AM

Laptop comes with a measly 1gb of ram, which I'm sure is slowing it down and would really benefit with double that at least. Problem is we have insurance on the machine, so would that be invalid, even if I paid for a qualified (sic) person to fit it?

Or am I going to have to scour the small print?

Paradoxia0 - 15/11/09 at 11:09 AM

I was once told that doing normal things you would do to a computer will not invalidate the warranty. This includes installing new hardware, graphics cards etc. etc. If this is not allowed do they also state that you are not allowed to install any software 'cos that will invalidate the warranty too?

If you have a panel on the bottom of the laptop then just go for it, if you have to take the machine to pieces (like my nieces NetBook) then be a lot more careful doing it :-)

Mark

Ninehigh - 15/11/09 at 11:11 AM

Well I built my own PC a few years ago so it shouldn't be a problem there, it looks like it's just a panel..

iscmatt - 15/11/09 at 11:12 AM

i know that with macs upgrading RAM ad your Hard Drive do not invalidate the warranty.

Ninehigh - 15/11/09 at 11:23 AM

It's not the warranty (I think that's up now anyway) it's the separate accidental damage and theft insurance...

britishtrident - 15/11/09 at 11:29 AM

Although an extra gb will improve multitasking it sounds as if the system needs a good clean out, and virus sweep.

Often the cause of slow running and start up is Symmantec/Norton or other big name anti-virus software or software (especiallly OCR) that gets installed with printers.

BenB - 15/11/09 at 11:30 AM

Well if it's nicked it's going to be difficult for the insurance company to know it's been changed. If you have to send it to them to claim on accidental damage just take out the extra memory

Ninehigh - 15/11/09 at 11:33 AM

quote:
Originally posted by BenB
Well if it's nicked it's going to be difficult for the insurance company to know it's been changed. If you have to send it to them to claim on accidental damage just take out the extra memory


Now that's a good point it would just be a case of keeping the old part

It's not been the fastest thing anyway, but both stepson's one (slower processor speed, 4gig ram) and missus's tower (3ghz processor, 2 gig ram) run far faster, and I'm using pretty much the exact same software.

If it's not the ram that's causing the slowdown you lot are going to blame Vista!

jeffw - 15/11/09 at 12:03 PM

1Gb of RAM and Vista will be the issue. 2Gb will make a large difference to Vista...and an upgrade to Windows 7 will help as well.

Ninehigh - 15/11/09 at 12:36 PM

quote:
Originally posted by jeffw
1Gb of RAM and Vista will be the issue. 2Gb will make a large difference to Vista...and an upgrade to Windows 7 will help as well.

Upgrading to 7 is an entirely separate issue!

iank - 15/11/09 at 08:29 PM

Vista will run like a dog on 1G, shocking glutton for memory.