Memory is my friend!

[girlyswot]

I've had the laptop for about 8 months now, running Vista with 1GB RAM. This was fine at first but recently it's been getting slower and slower and I have one programme that I couldn't use because it would just bluescreen immediately.

So today I bit the bullet and took it in to Circuit City, paid the money and came home with 3GB RAM installed. Honestly, the computer now works faster than my brain. It's scary! It feels like having a new computer again.

ETA: Why are things never that straightforward with computers?

About an hour in, I suddenly got a dark blue screen with the ominous words 'Hardware Malfunction'. I did what any normal person would do - ignored it. Turned the computer off and on again. It worked perfectly, at the lightning fast speed, for the rest of the afternoon. Put it on hibernate to come home, try turning it back on - nothing. Just the Vaio flash, then no Windows, nothing.

Took it back to Circuit City where another teenager looked at it and shook his head. Apparently my computer (or possibly my version of Vista) won't cope with 3GB. So he took out one of the newly installed cards, and voilá, it works again, though not quite so fast. We're not back to yesterday's level of slowness. I'd say it's now about the speed of my brain, so that's good. Plus I get to return the memory card I didn't need, so it's saved money too.

I think I'm happy. So long as it WORKS this time!

Comments

[amamama.livejournal.com]

Oh, I hate that phrase, 'Hardware Malfunction'. Ours has had a penchant for 'Kernel instack page error' which is completely Greek to me, but thankfully we've discovered that opening the cover and vacuuming the insides does the trick. I've heard a lot of different stuff about Vista, not all of it good. Hubby dear refused to get Vista installed when the laptop was fixed, he swears to XP until they get all their wrinkles ironed out. I'm holding my thumbs, hoping your DC keeps on working - at the speed of your brain. That should be fast enough for almost any computer.

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

I think Vista works fine. Obviously there were teething problems and there's always the issue of software upgrading. But it does need a computer with sufficient memory and 1GB isn't really enough.