Is this corporate PC as worthless as I think it is?

[tom.with.a.dream]

Our company provides PCs throughout the site and I feel like the ones they dish out to my department are garbage. Here are some results pulled from a screen cap of the Performance tab on Task Manager with only Outlook and TM open. Your thoughts??

Windows 10
4GB (3.9) RAM
-- running at 3.1gb
512GB (466) hdd
-- running at 100% active time
-- at 7MB/s, transfer rate
-- with 122 ms response
-- read 2.6MB/s write 147 KB/s

We frequently also see the CPU (2.95GHz, guessing a dual core at best) running maxed out but this screen cap has it at 6%.

Nearly all software we use is remote and pretty deeply massaged to lock out hacking etc and most running databases with large (very) data sets.

Am I out to lunch on how crappy these machines are for what they expect out of them?
Thanks,
Tom (not "that" Tom)

 

[camieabz]

4GB RAM should be fine for a standard office computer. No need for gaming, videos and the like. However, the IT dept may not have locked down all the Win10 stuff that will eat resources.

Set up a Win10 system yesterday with 16GB RAM, and the initial RAM usage was 1.5GB (slightly tweaked), so your system might need some startup tweaking.

 

[tom.with.a.dream]

4GB RAM should be fine for a standard office computer. No need for gaming, videos and the like. However, the IT dept may not have locked down all the Win10 stuff that will eat resources.

I had heard that 4GB was the minimum for a Win10 machine. With RAM being so cheap (relatively) I am surprised that the IT dept thinks this is adequate for machines that we are expected to use multiple software apps that use remote server-based databases and cameras and so on.

Watching the Performance Monitor I see that any tiny task spikes the RAM if it wasn't already at max and then starts hitting the HDD. I assume they are using the cheapest drives spinning at 5400. The machine just lags for the smallest little thing. And it is a microdesk form factor, about 6x6x1 so no motherboard to speak of and no discrete video. Not that I expect that for a corporate machine but I'd like to not waste literally hours a day waiting on programs and sync's.

I know nothing about this "locking down of Win stuff that eats resources". I know there are numerous things but I have no idea how to do that, and obviously have no access to these machines.

 

[camieabz]

Simple stuff, such as Windows search, if not needed, Cortana, and maybe 10-20 unnecessary services. Like you say, you don't have access, so that's that. 😀