Help upgrading laptop for student

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Zellephant

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Hi guys, I am a bit of an ignoramus when it comes to all things Windows related, but need some advice helping a family friend who is in the final stage of completing a PhD with sorting out their laptop to get them through the last bit of stats and graphing.

As best I can make out it’s either a 2020 or 2021 model Lenovo L340 ideapad with a Ryzen 7 processor and an AMD Radeon graphics card (based on the stickers on the machine). By all accounts it should be pretty decent, but it battles just open file explorer and constantly hangs on every process. It’s exquiselty slow.

It’s supposed to have 16gig of ram - but I can’t make out exactly what it’s showing in task manager, but it looks to me as if it’s running on only 8gig. I have attached a screenshot from task manager - that is with absolutely nothing running in the background. Please help me make sense what is going on here. Is it running on 8 or 16GB?

A new laptop is simply not in the budget. But would this machine be able to take 2 16gb ram chips? I can get ddr4 16gig chips currently on Takealot for about R2400.00. Would this be compatible with this motherboard/processor setup. Or must I rather try get DDR5? Will this sort out the hopelessly slow machine. It just needs to so word processing, some excel and some stats (cant recall the stats programs name, but its supplied by the varsity, and is only available on windows, otherwise I would just have given them my old macbook.
 

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Suspect it has 4GB soldered, with 1x slot populated with another 4GB.

The Ryzen’s GPU uses a portion of RAM, probably the 2.1GB hardware-reserved, but I stand to be corrected.

Replacing the 4GB with 16GB will lead to a decent improvement, as it would seem RAM is being maxed at times/under load.

The other issue is the SATA SSD, which could also be unhealthy. Laptop should support a M.2 NVMe SSD, which would be several times faster than the SATA one.

Check health using HD Sentinel.

Lastly, laptop likely needs a service and dust blowout. Fan could be clogged causing lower performance to compensate for heat.
 
You can't install ddr5 sodimm into ddr4 motherboard. So don't buy ddr5.

The post above is probably right, it probably has 4gb onboard ram (solderd) and another replaceable stick.

The graphics card is integrated not dedicated so it uses part of your total system ram.

Open it up, confim the one ram slot, check for an nvme slot, blow the dust out and perhaps reset/re install windows. There are also windows debloating tools like the one form Chris Titus that may be worth trying.
 
Thanks guys. I’m trying to help out remotely at the moment. Have invited them for dinner tomorrow and will open it up and have a look what is currently installed. Seem a bit of a weird choice by Lenovo to sell a laptop with a Ryzen 7 processor and only equip it with 8gb ram…. Especially on a machine destined to run windows.
 
Your screenshot shows high disk usage. perhaps it was installing updates.
Use AI to help you troubleshoot. Chatgpt works pretty well and could give you instructions on what you can try.

You can try a some of commands to help you troubleshoot:
Run powershell as administrator and type (assuming windows 11)
Get-PhysicalDisk | Select FriendlyName, HealthStatus, OperationalStatus

you can also try
sfc /scannow
(tool to scan for and repair corrupted or missing protected Windows system files)

mdsched.exe
(Windows Memory Diagnostic) but you'll have to check the the event viewer for MemoryDiagnostics-Results under Windows Logs - System
after the reboot and scan.
 
Zellephant said:
Thanks guys. I’m trying to help out remotely at the moment. Have invited them for dinner tomorrow and will open it up and have a look what is currently installed. Seem a bit of a weird choice by Lenovo to sell a laptop with a Ryzen 7 processor and only equip it with 8gb ram…. Especially on a machine destined to run windows.
Click to expand...
Lemme guess....the HDD is 97% full.
 
In the image you attached for the RAM it says slots used: 2 of 2. This means that it is picking up both the soldered RAM and one stick in the SO-DIMM slot, most likely 4GB plus 4GB. There will not be much to gain here apart from upgrading an existing stick to a higher capacity one.

Best to follow some of the other advice here to see if things improve. When I was getting towards the end of my PhD I resisted the urge to upgrade even though the computer really needed it. The reason was that everything had been set up for the work over time and it would have been a distraction to get it all done again. Just getting the computer usable would probably be the best objective.
 
Park@82 said:
Your screenshot shows high disk usage. perhaps it was installing updates.
Use AI to help you troubleshoot. Chatgpt works pretty well and could give you instructions on what you can try.
Click to expand...
I mean it’s a windows PC, when isn’t it installing updates. 😂. But thanks, I will try your other recommendations as well.

RedViking said:
So many windows laptops now with 8GB on the market. It's crazy
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I don’t understand it. They ship with Windows 11, which is so bloated an resource heavy it literally needs 8gig just to start up, yet they think it’s okay to ship with 8gig ram. Why bother with a semi decent processor like the Ryzen 7, but only give it 8gig ram, for windows. The mind boggles.
TheMightyQuin said:
Lemme guess....the HDD is 97% full.
Click to expand...
Not sure, will check tonight, but I doubt it, they have a massive amount of one drive space through the university, and pretty much everything important is stored there - but the SATA drive itself might be adding to the “slowness”
garyc said:
In the image you attached for the RAM it says slots used: 2 of 2. This means that it is picking up both the soldered RAM and one stick in the SO-DIMM slot, most likely 4GB plus 4GB. There will not be much to gain here apart from upgrading an existing stick to a higher capacity one.
Click to expand...
That’s exactly what I want to do. My concern is if you look at the screenshot, it also shows 6.3/15.2GB committed. I’m a bit confused by what that means, if it only has 8GB available (but like I said, im a windows ignoramus). I’m worried it can’t be upgraded above 16gb ram. If that’s the case, what happens if I put a 16gb chip in the SO-DIMM slot, and it’s already got 4gb soldered in? Should I rather buy him a 8gb chip instead, to replace the 4gb that’s currently in there, taking it to 12gb total?
garyc said:
Best to follow some of the other advice here to see if things improve. When I was getting towards the end of my PhD I resisted the urge to upgrade even though the computer really needed it. The reason was that everything had been set up for the work over time and it would have been a distraction to get it all done again. Just getting the computer usable would probably be the best objective.
Click to expand...
I will follow the other advice too, will make sure there isn’t too much unnecessary bloatware installed etc, will clean out dust and all the other basics, but 8gb ram on a windows 11 machine does seem to be the biggest choke point at this stage.
 
Zellephant said:
I don’t understand it. They ship with Windows 11, which is so bloated an resource heavy it literally needs 8gig just to start up, yet they think it’s okay to ship with 8gig ram. Why bother with a semi decent processor like the Ryzen 7, but only give it 8gig ram, for windows. The mind boggles
Click to expand...
ram crisis going on
 
Zellephant said:
I don’t understand it. They ship with Windows 11, which is so bloated an resource heavy it literally needs 8gig just to start up, yet they think it’s okay to ship with 8gig ram. Why bother with a semi decent processor like the Ryzen 7, but only give it 8gig ram, for windows. The mind boggles.

Not sure, will check tonight, but I doubt it, they have a massive amount of one drive space through the university, and pretty much everything important is stored there - but the SATA drive itself might be adding to the “slowness”

That’s exactly what I want to do. My concern is if you look at the screenshot, it also shows 6.3/15.2GB committed. I’m a bit confused by what that means, if it only has 8GB available (but like I said, im a windows ignoramus). I’m worried it can’t be upgraded above 16gb ram. If that’s the case, what happens if I put a 16gb chip in the SO-DIMM slot, and it’s already got 4gb soldered in? Should I rather buy him a 8gb chip instead, to replace the 4gb that’s currently in there, taking it to 12gb total?
Click to expand...
It comes down to pricing. That laptop was probably shipped with Windows 10 though. I was still using 8GB on a windows 10 laptop +-2 years ago and most people on here would have laughed at that. It worked fine but I know not to open up infinite tabs, close apps that I'm not using and I know how to disable startup apps. Perhaps as a interim solutions check for unnecessary startup apps.

SATA SSDs aren't that slow IMO and they used to work well enough for most people.

From my understanding "Committed" has to do with page file + RAM. The page file is disk space that Windows uses when RAM is running low. Windows moves less-used parts of memory to disk to free up RAM. Faster storage helps, but it cannot match RAM speed. Either way try to upgrade physical memory. Try to go with 16GB so that you'll have a total of 20GB.
 
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Thanks for the advice. 16gig ram has been ordered off Takealot, will revert back once it’s been installed. Other than that, the machine seems okay, fans cleaned out, but it wasn’t too dirty to begin with.

Must say, I’m personally a bit disappointed in Lenovos build quality though. Definately doesn’t feel particularly well made.
 
Zellephant said:
Thanks for the advice. 16gig ram has been ordered off Takealot, will revert back once it’s been installed. Other than that, the machine seems okay, fans cleaned out, but it wasn’t too dirty to begin with.

Must say, I’m personally a bit disappointed in Lenovos build quality though. Definately doesn’t feel particularly well made.
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Did you confirm that the system can take the 16GB to make up 20GB? As some models could only go up to 12GB.
 
Lupus said:
Did you confirm that the system can take the 16GB to make up 20GB? As some models could only go up to 12GB.
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Are you sure about that? I haven't seen this before. The only limitation Ive seen is where the CPU can only support up to x GB and even in some of those cases it can take more than the max specified by CPU vendor.
 
Park@82 said:
Are you sure about that? I haven't seen this before. The only limitation Ive seen is where the CPU can only support up to x GB and even in some of those cases it can take more than the max specified by CPU vendor.
Click to expand...
Well one chip is soldered on to the board and it's possibly 4GB if both sodimms are filled by the looks of the screenshot. So max is 20GB
  • Type: DDR4 SODIMM.
  • Speed: Usually DDR4-2400MHz, but faster RAM (like 2666MHz or 3200MHz) can often be used, though it may run at the motherboard's supported speed (2400MHz).
  • Slots: One soldered, one SO-DIMM slot (or sometimes two slots depending on the variant).
  • Max Capacity: Varies, often up to 8GB (4GB soldered + 4GB stick) or 16GB (single 16GB stick) or 20GB total.
Some users were only able to get an 8GB stick to work with the existing soldered on 4GB :-( the L340 is an old laptop going on 6 or 7 years old already.
From the manual for the AMD SOC
1768986289651.png
 
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