SSD, Hydrid SSD or HDD + SSD/Hybrid SSD, or more RAM

[matthewspring]

I bought a lenovo ideapad z370 (with 500GB HDD and 4GB RAM) last year and it is a fantastic laptop, cheap, nice and comfortable keyboard, and decent graphics. However it is very slow, i dont have many third party programs only skype and itunes that i can think of. When in chrome/internet explorer i find the speeds are ridiculously slow, i have 16MB internet speed so shouldn't be slow. Itunes takes ages to open and is occasionally laggy when open. Plus when i have 5 tabs or more open on chrome and Skype open my computer is so slow. My main problem is the boot up and shutdown and update times they take the longest!

People have said increase the RAM it improves the performance of the running of the programs. I seen the prices and another 4GB to make a total of 8GB isnt too expensive. However some have said get and SSD. It is recommend that around 128GB is right amount. However i would just easily buy these things and install them myself but i don't want to replace my 500GB Hard drive. My question is can i have both the HDD and SSD if so how do i run both.

Also let me know what the best thing to do, to increase the overall speed and performance of the laptop, more RAM and SSD or Hybrid SSD. Ive seen Hybrid SSDs are way cheaper and more GB but ive heard they arnt as good as normal SSDs. Help me make my mind up and what should i do and how do i go about it.

Thanks for reading this and hope you can help and i hope i made sense!

 

[Dereck47]

Upgrade your RAM from 4GB to 8GB first.
Use your system for a couple of weeks after the upgrade and see if it is still slow to you. If so, you can then look into getting a SSD or Hybrid-SSD.

 

[unoriginal1]

SSD will improve boot times, and how fast applications open (itunes) etc.
Ram will help with the multitasking.. But with just browsing... 4GB really shouldn't be slowing you down.
Have you connected to another wireless network? Work, Friends, Family etc? Did it behave the same there?

 

[matthewspring]

I have a wireless in my room i setup myself, my family use Ethernet connection, at the beginning speeds using chrome is good, then when i open multiple tabs, open another program, maybe go on youtube or skype and suddenly programs become laggy.

 

[USAFRet]

Open more and more things, it will use more RAM to run each application or browser tab.

Increase your RAM first. Then look to an SSD.

 

[unoriginal1]

Right I understand that. have you tested your laptop on another wireless network thou. Does it run good on a different connection. E.G. Friends, Work, Neighbors etc.

Basically what I'm saying is you shouldn't get "lag" with multiple browser tabs with 4GB of RAM that's plenty to handle browsing. I have multiple tabs open on a machine with only 2GB.

I'm wondering if there isn't a configuration issue, or something else going on here that an upgrade isn't going to fix.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

Did you update the motherboard BIOS? Lenovo issued two BIOS updates to fix problems. Among the things that were fixed was a problem with the hard drive slowing down.

 

[noonin]

I assume you have gone to Run/regedit to see what programs are started an Windows startup? If not, you may have a bunch of bloatware running in the background that's slowing you down.

 

[ChasHans]

uninstall McAfee

 

[Fouchey]

Your problem is not your hardware. 4GB of RAM is plenty for browsing the internet with 5 tabs open or using Skype.

I would look for Malware slowing your computer down. If you haven't cleaned your start up programs in the last year you might have longer boot times. I have 4GB of ram currently and I can easily have 10+ tabs open without any affect on my computer speed so if I were you I would not waste your money on more RAM.

 

[chriss000]

How many gigs does your system say is on the hard drive in total? I have had some very strange experiences with 2.5 inch mechanical drives in cheap laptops. Faulty cache, whole platters not working, etc.This slows them down drasticly. I would concur adding ram is not going to make any difference at all. I only have 2gig in this 7yr old desktop and streaming a movie with ten other tabs open is no problem.
Do the bios fix first. then Clean off all the rubbish. Do updates,.
Download ccleaner and run it all. Defrag the harddrive. Use a light antivirus like avast or avg. If it is still slow, its a hard drive problem i suspect. You cant lose by getting a solid state drive. If you need big storage get an external drive. Sorry if I am right, but your 500g drive wont be much use.
BTW,moving a laptop while it is running can muller the hard drve.