RAM Upgrade ValueRam vs HyperX Impact

Hi there,

I need to upgrade memory in my laptop - Acer Aspire V7-482PG

Here are the specs of my laptop: http://www.acer.ca/ac/en/CA/content/model/NX.MB5AA.006 It is not 100% same what I have but close enough.

At the moment, I have 4GB kingston and (probably) another 4gb on motherboard. I have only one slot so need to choose good upgrade.

I am in between these two:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kingston-Va...F8&qid=1443872447&sr=1-1&keywords=DDR3L+SDRAM

http://www.amazon.co.uk/HyperX-Impa...F8&qid=1443872447&sr=1-6&keywords=DDR3L+SDRAM

I am not sure if you are seeing the the same discounts as do, but basically they are only 2 pounds apart.
I would be inclined to getting the valueRam and be safe, but at the same time if the hyperx works with my laptop, it might result in better performance.

Just so you understand, this is the worst laptop I have ever had in my hands, but unfortunately I am stuck with it, so trying to find ways to improve it as much as possible.

Current performance on my 8gb (4gb kingston + 4gb on montherboard) is exactly the same, and maybe even worse, as when I remove the kingston and just boot the pc on integrated 4gb... So I think new 8gb could make a huge difference.

I am also including a photo of insides, so you can decide if the memory is going to work with my laptop





Thank you very much for your help.

 

I have just noticed, that my current memory runs on max 800 MHz .... I hope that is not the limitation of the slot but the memory itself. This laptop is seriously the worst piece of HW ever made

 

800MHz is the base clock frequency. DDR means Double Data Rate so the effective speed is 1600MHz. This is a perennial cause of confusion.

The HyperX RAM should work (I've put some in my Dell E7450) but you are unlikely see any speed benefit because this will be controlled by the RAM on the mainboard. Run CPUz with only the mainboard RAM and see what timings it reports. Are they faster than 11-11-11-28?

If you want the computer to run noticeably faster then spend your money on a proper SSD. The overall specs suggest that the computer should run well if not held back by the HDD.

John

 

What is the CPU in your laptop?
As for the RAM running on 800MhZ, it might be possible its running at 800MhZ because it is running in single channel mode (no other RAM slot - not sure how this works if you already have onboard RAM - bad choice in design since it would have been better to add another slot).

i7-4500U CPU for example supports up to 16GB of RAM, but since you only have 1 slot, that's a bit moot.
I'm afraid you are stuck to 8GB... or if you can get your hands on higher amount of single slot RAM - but only for increase in overall RAM size.

The lower timings on the HyperX RAM might help you in integrated graphics perhaps, but the overall speed would likely still be limited to 800MhZ.
You'd gain some minor benefits... but I think they would not be that noticeable.
If you had 2 RAM slots and installed 16GB of that HyperX RAM, then you might notice improvements.

The best you could do to speed up your laptop would be to replace the HDD with an SSD and do a clean install on it.
More RAM is certainly not a bad thing though, but an SSD would benefit you better.

 

It's just the way CPU-Z reports RAM speed, it is running at 1600MHz CL11... If you get the Kingston Hyper X, it will most lilely run at 1600MHz CL11 to match timings...

 

Thanks everyone for reply.

Unfortunately SSD disk is not in my budget at the moment. Actually I have 24gb SSD in my laptop that they promote should speed up the laptop a lot, but I think it doesnt do anything, since booting is slow and when I check it in disk manager, it always says its 100% empty.. So I think it is not really used...

I understand that I am not going to notice any difference with memory speed, but shouldnt I notice difference when I will have 4gb more memory?

 

What physical RAM utilisation does Task Manager show when you are running your most used programs at the same time? Once the RAM is nearly used up then Windows will start dumping RAM contents onto the hard drive which is much slower to accss.

As for that unused 24GB SSD, it seems that the computer hasn't been set up correctly. Getting this fixed should make a significant difference to the performance.

John

 

Task manager shows 4.2/7.9GB (53%) used. This is in idle state, just chrome, skype and dropbox opened.

Any ideas how to setup the SSD? I have found some tut on acer and setup the disk as a hybernate drive, but doesnt seem to do much...

What annoys me most:

• Boot is really slow - around or more than a minute
• After boot, the startup, is even slower. It takes somewhere between 5-20 minutes before the pc is usable.
• JetBrains IDE start ups slow and is slow all way through. This is the worst thing as its what I am using it mainly for.

Now all this makes me unhappy because I am comparing it to my desktop at the office, which has all configuration worse, just 16GB memory. It has much more startup programs network drives and other stuff. But the boot is about 10s, PC is 100% usable from the second windows starts up, IDE starts up in about 5s and never get stuck (opening files, autocomplete etc.)

I am really disappointed because my laptop is so much better on paper than my office desktop, yet my laptop is unusable in comparison with the desktop. A lot of stuff online says "turn offs startup programs", "cut down on effects" etc. But why? Why did I then buy laptop for more more than $1000 just to have to restrict myself...

As you can see I am extremely frustrated with this laptop. Even more that this is a replacement for acer that I have had for last 4 years, and, again, my old acer runs much better than this new one...

 

HyperX is in, laptop even slower - if thats even possible... I guess im gonna have to save up for ssd

 

HyperX has the better stuff compared to a valueram, i suggest you double check your Acer laptop's supported clockspeed for RAM. Otherwise it won't do any good. (from my experience, I've upgraded my Acer netbook with twin 4GB hyperX ddr3 running at dual channel) Example: Intel board supports ram up to 1333Mhz, a hyperX 1600Mhz ram clockspeed is hence limited by the motherboard.

However, what I can share here is that my netbook feels more responsive than before, in gaming performance, lagging is hardly noticeable. Coupled with a 60GB SSD, my netbook can easily shame a factory spec corei7 laptop by normal use. xD

 

What's your idle, no programs running RAM usage, internet browsers can be pretty memory hungry depending on the number of tabs opened.

Slow boot and slow startup might mean something is going bad or that the RAM stick you bought is defective. A bad hard drive will also produce notably slow boot and startup times.

The CPU in your Acer while being ok for normal usage is by no means the fastest of the bunch. For all we know, you desktop could have a CPU equivalent or better even if it's a few generations older, although I don't think it's the issue.

It's not about limiting yourself, it's about removing programs and startup entries that have no business being there in the first place. For example, why the heck does Adobe Reader need to be a startup entry or iTunes for that matter. Dropbox, drivers, etc. are not what people say to deactivate when the say to cleanup startup, they mean to deactivate entries that will not impact the functionality of your computer and programs in any way. One example: my previous Asus laptop was running > 80 processes on its default factory installation due to bloatware and programs in the startup list that had absolutely no reasons to be there and for whatever reasons, the developers decided they needed to be there. A clean install later and the processes were down to ~65, that was with everything I wanted to run at startup so that programs like dropbox would start and sync files from the get go, etc. Again, I don't think it's what's making your computer so slow, but you have notoriously bad programs that tend to bog things down, for example, McAfee has a nasty habit of interfering with stuff, plants deep hook into your system that makes removing it a pretty tedious task.

tl;dr: Run diagnostics on your RAM and hard drive, to make sure one of them isn't bad.