[SOLVED] Second opinion

[Yeldur]

Hi all,

I'm in disagreement with a person regarding RAM, essentially we're speaking about a Windows 10 machine that is being used for workstation tasks such as word processing, excel spreadsheets, Teams calls and Internet browsing among other things, sometimes simultaneously.

On Windows 10, obviously the required amount of RAM is 2GB, in this case the computer currently has 4GB of RAM and is experiencing crashes, we've not been able to find what these crashes are down to as there don't appear to be any logs in event viewer, and they seem to happen intermittently, however I have noticed that the RAM usage is constantly running high and all machines running with 4GB of RAM appear to be running slowly.

I'm suggesting that we should likely upgrade to 8GB of RAM because of how cheap it is to do so, and then see if we continue to get problems, as if I remember correctly, if you use up enough RAM and hit the end of the pagefile, your system will fall over.

He however is suggesting that 4GB is all they need and that Windows 10 crashing is just a fact of life on an intermittent scale (I don't disagree necessarily with the crashing element)


I guess the question is, which of us is right? Is it worth upgrading to 8GB of RAM to see if this would fix the issues? Or is he right that 4GB is all this workstation should need?

 

[Wolfshadw]

I can't say that adding RAM will resolve the crashing issues, but the increase in productivity, by itself, warrants the upgrade.

-Wolf sends

 

[CountMike]

Hi all,

I'm in disagreement with a person regarding RAM, essentially we're speaking about a Windows 10 machine that is being used for workstation tasks such as word processing, excel spreadsheets, Teams calls and Internet browsing among other things, sometimes simultaneously.

On Windows 10, obviously the required amount of RAM is 2GB, in this case the computer currently has 4GB of RAM and is experiencing crashes, we've not been able to find what these crashes are down to as there don't appear to be any logs in event viewer, and they seem to happen intermittently, however I have noticed that the RAM usage is constantly running high and all machines running with 4GB of RAM appear to be running slowly.

I'm suggesting that we should likely upgrade to 8GB of RAM because of how cheap it is to do so, and then see if we continue to get problems, as if I remember correctly, if you use up enough RAM and hit the end of the pagefile, your system will fall over.

He however is suggesting that 4GB is all they need and that Windows 10 crashing is just a fact of life on an intermittent scale (I don't disagree necessarily with the crashing element)


I guess the question is, which of us is right? Is it worth upgrading to 8GB of RAM to see if this would fix the issues? Or is he right that 4GB is all this workstation should need?

Page file is flexible if left on auto but can cause problems with slow disks. I wold consider minimum 8GB (2*4GB) of RAM for any usage case.
That 2GB minimum is overly opti/pesimistic and only for 32bit OS as windows 10, 64bit will happily grab 3.5GB+ just for own operation and be wholly dependent on very slow virtual memory.

 

[Yeldur]

I can't say that adding RAM will resolve the crashing issues, but the increase in productivity, by itself, warrants the upgrade.

-Wolf sends

Page file is flexible if left on auto but can cause problems with slow disks. I wold consider minimum 8GB (2*4GB) of RAM for any usage case.
That 2GB minimum is overly opti/pesimistic and only for 32bit OS as windows 10, 64bit will happily grab 3.5GB+ just for own operation and be wholly dependent on very slow virtual memory.

This is what I figured, I'm of the mind that most systems should be on 8GB except if they're running only extremely basic tasks now a days, and I agree that it won't necessarily fix the crashing however should certainly offer us better performance and rule out that it's the pagefile hitting it's end-tether that causes the crash.

 

[CountMike]

This is what I figured, I'm of the mind that most systems should be on 8GB except if they're running only extremely basic tasks now a days, and I agree that it won't necessarily fix the crashing however should certainly offer us better performance and rule out that it's the pagefile hitting it's end-tether that causes the crash.

Even running only extremely basic tasks within rest of free RAM will trigger page file usage as windows like to keep certain amount of RAM free and will swap to disk often.

 

[Yeldur]

Even running only extremely basic tasks within rest of free RAM will trigger page file usage as windows like to keep certain amount of RAM free and will swap to disk often.

Sure, yeah, my point was more focused on the end of if we're using up enough RAM to then over-use pagefile to the point where it runs out of RAM and pagefile and causes a system crash.

 

[CountMike]

Sure, yeah, my point was more focused on the end of if we're using up enough RAM to then over-use pagefile to the point where it runs out of RAM and pagefile and causes a system crash.

Well, yeah, that's exactly what happens.

 

[Yeldur]

As you both answered my question I'm going to decide the best answer by a flip of the coin because why not

Edit:
Heads it is...


Thanks for the help guys