Increase performance on laptop with soldered RAM

[FreeRunEggs]

Hi everyone

I want to increase the performance of my work laptop but it has soldered RAM (single 4GB with no room for expansion). The CPU is an i5-4300U which is good but the limited 4GB RAM is brutal for using multiple applications or multiple tabs in web browsers. Keep in mind this is a work laptop so there’s a lot of additional mandatory software that runs in the background and I don’t have the luxury to remove/disable it.

My question is:
Are there any ways to increase the speed through another method outside of physically replacing the soldered RAM?
I recall in Windows Vista or 7 there used to be a way that you could setup a USB thumb drive to act like additional RAM. But I couldn’t find any useful details on this online for Win 10… Or is there any way I can setup part of the SSD to act like additional RAM? I thought about changing the Virtual Memory (paging file size). Currently it is set to 704MB. Will increasing this boost performance?

Thanks in advance!

Laptop specs:
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (2nd Gen)
120GB SSD – 60% free
I5-4300U
Win 10 enterprise 64bit

 

[firefoxx04]

Ram does not = speed. Ram will only kill speed if you max it out. If you max it out, it does not matter how fast your system is.

If your work is important enough to warrant a fast laptop, simply get a fast laptop. If your employee does not understand the need, perhaps you need a new employee.

Windows Vista had ready boost and it was a very BAD attempt to expand swap space because most vista machines were under-powered. USB flash drives do not have the IO speed even remotely close to RAM speed. Even the fastest PCI express ssd (enterprise grade for example) get smoked down by standard DDR3.

 

[Corwin65]

You're thinking of RAMBOOST.

It's not really worth it, and won't help.

See if your IT department has a newer model laptop you can swap that one out for.

 

[theyeti87]

Ram does not = speed. Ram will only kill speed if you max it out. If you max it out, it does not matter how fast your system is.

From the description it sounds like his system is taking a performance hit by saturating the small amount of RAM installed. So in his case, more RAM would translate to improved performance.

 

[Corwin65]

Ram does not = speed. Ram will only kill speed if you max it out. If you max it out, it does not matter how fast your system is.

From the description it sounds like his system is taking a performance hit by saturating the small amount of RAM installed. So in his case, more RAM would translate to improved performance.

Yes, but unfortunately, his equipment does not allow for that.

 

[boosted1g]

the 'READYBOOST' in Vista/7 was a joke and no one used that. Even a laptop hard drive was faster then usb 2.0 flash drives.

The only thing you can do outside of upgrade laptop is to increase virtual memory size.

 

[FreeRunEggs]

the 'READYBOOST' in Vista/7 was a joke and no one used that. Even a laptop hard drive was faster then usb 2.0 flash drives.

The only thing you can do outside of upgrade laptop is to increase virtual memory size.

Sounds good. I was thinking this as well. Any guidelines for what amount to increase it by? It's at 704MB now so I was thinking of doubling it.

 

[boosted1g]

If you have the space on SSD then I woudl go as high as 4GB

 

[FreeRunEggs]

You're thinking of RAMBOOST.

It's not really worth it, and won't help.

See if your IT department has a newer model laptop you can swap that one out for.

I'd love to get a newer model with 8GB standard but the model I have is already better than most (I work for a non-profit gov organization).