Question Would RAM and/or SSD upgrade help old laptop to run faster?

[dajjorg]

Hi all, please let me know if this thread would be better placed in another sub-forum than "Components".

Situation: found an old Toshiba Satellite laptop from 2016 lying around parents home. Would like to get it running at a decent speed, so that I could use it when visiting parents & not have to bring my own laptop. Really won't need to use this laptop for anything other than light Chrome internet browsing and Powerpoint, very very light usage

When first booting it up (hadn't been turned on in 5 years), it was painfully, painfully slow. Five minutes to get to the login screen, another 2-3 minutes to bring up the desktop once I logged in, 1-2 minutes just to open up Chrome.

First step I took was to back up all my files (maybe 50 gb total) to an external HD, then do a factory reset. After the factory reset, reinstalled maybe only 6-7 apps/programs (the bare minimum that I'll need while visiting parents... there were maybe around 30-40 apps/programs still on it prior to the factory reset). This got it running somewhat faster, but still pretty slow: a minute for the login screen to appear, half a minute for desktop to appear once logged in, 30 sec to open Chrome. Also got a free trial subscription of Norton Utilities Ultimate to clean up things, although it didn't seem to have any effect.

So my next question is whether there are any hardware upgrades that I might be able to do to this Toshiba Satellite to make it run a little faster, as it's still not running at a speed at which is acceptable for me. In the past, using advice from this forum & Youtube tutorials, I purchased & manually installed an additional RAM stick & a SSD for my Dell laptop, which improved things so much that it was literally like buying a brand new laptop. But maybe this Toshiba laptop is just so old that neither a RAM upgrade nor a SSD would have much effect. Here are the specs for it, from "System Information":

OS Name --- Microsoft Windows 10 Home
Version --- 10.0.19042 Build 19042
Other --- OS Description Not Available
OS Manufacturer --- Microsoft Corporation
System Name --- DESKTOP-NOSSANK
System Manufacturer --- TOSHIBA
System Model --- Satellite L50-B
System Type --- x64-based PC
System SKU --- Type1Sku0
Processor --- Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-3217U CPU @ 1.80GHz, 1800 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date --- Insyde Corp. 1.10, 5/6/2014
SMBIOS Version --- 2.7
Embedded Controller Version --- 1.10
BIOS Mode --- UEFI
BaseBoard Manufacturer --- Type2 - Board Vendor Name1
BaseBoard Product --- Type2 - Board Product Name1
BaseBoard Version T--- ype2 - Board Version
Platform Role --- Mobile
Secure Boot State --- On
PCR7 Configuration --- Binding Not Possible
Windows Directory --- C:\WINDOWS
System Directory --- C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device --- \Device\HarddiskVolume2
Locale --- United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer --- Version = "10.0.19041.1151"
User Name --- [not sharing this info]
Time Zone --- Eastern Daylight Time
Installed Physical Memory (RAM)--- 6.00 GB
Total Physical Memory--- 5.89 GB
Available Physical Memory--- 2.25 GB
Total Virtual Memory--- 7.52 GB
Available Virtual Memory --- 3.90 GB
Page File Space --- 1.63 GB
Page File --- C:\pagefile.sys
Kernel DMA Protection --- Off
Virtualization-based security --- Not enabled
Device Encryption Support --- Reasons for failed automatic device encryption: TPM is not usable, PCR7 binding is not supported, Hardware Security Test Interface failed and device is not Modern Standby, Un-allowed DMA capable bus/device(s) detected, TPM is not usable
Hyper-V - VM Monitor Mode Extensions--- Yes
Hyper-V - Second Level Address Translation Extensions--- Yes
Hyper-V - Virtualization Enabled in Firmware--- Yes
Hyper-V - Data Execution Protection--- Yes


So my questions, concretely, are:
1) Would a RAM upgrade make things run faster? My intuition would say no, it wouldn't help much as I'm not really trying to run multiple programs, game, stream, etc. I'm literally just trying to do some light web browsing & make the occassional powerpoint presentation, for which 6gb RAM should already suffice.
2) Would an upgrade to an SSD make things run faster? My intuition is yes, those things are amazing.
3) Any other non-hardware-replacement fixes that I should try before considering RAM upgrade and/or an SSD upgrade?


Thanks so much in advance for your help. This forum is awesome.

 

[Rokinamerica]

If you are going from a HDD to a SSD, yes, you will notice a speed difference. I have a 2016 MSI laptop with NVMe and SSD and it is very fast.

 

[Bob.B]

Hi all, please let me know if this thread would be better placed in another sub-forum than "Components".

Situation: found an old Toshiba Satellite laptop from 2016 lying around parents home. Would like to get it running at a decent speed, so that I could use it when visiting parents & not have to bring my own laptop. Really won't need to use this laptop for anything other than light Chrome internet browsing and Powerpoint, very very light usage

When first booting it up (hadn't been turned on in 5 years), it was painfully, painfully slow. Five minutes to get to the login screen, another 2-3 minutes to bring up the desktop once I logged in, 1-2 minutes just to open up Chrome.

First step I took was to back up all my files (maybe 50 gb total) to an external HD, then do a factory reset. After the factory reset, reinstalled maybe only 6-7 apps/programs (the bare minimum that I'll need while visiting parents... there were maybe around 30-40 apps/programs still on it prior to the factory reset). This got it running somewhat faster, but still pretty slow: a minute for the login screen to appear, half a minute for desktop to appear once logged in, 30 sec to open Chrome. Also got a free trial subscription of Norton Utilities Ultimate to clean up things, although it didn't seem to have any effect.

So my next question is whether there are any hardware upgrades that I might be able to do to this Toshiba Satellite to make it run a little faster, as it's still not running at a speed at which is acceptable for me. In the past, using advice from this forum & Youtube tutorials, I purchased & manually installed an additional RAM stick & a SSD for my Dell laptop, which improved things so much that it was literally like buying a brand new laptop. But maybe this Toshiba laptop is just so old that neither a RAM upgrade nor a SSD would have much effect. Here are the specs for it, from "System Information":

OS Name --- Microsoft Windows 10 Home
Version --- 10.0.19042 Build 19042
Other --- OS Description Not Available
OS Manufacturer --- Microsoft Corporation
System Name --- DESKTOP-NOSSANK
System Manufacturer --- TOSHIBA
System Model --- Satellite L50-B
System Type --- x64-based PC
System SKU --- Type1Sku0
Processor --- Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-3217U CPU @ 1.80GHz, 1800 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date --- Insyde Corp. 1.10, 5/6/2014
SMBIOS Version --- 2.7
Embedded Controller Version --- 1.10
BIOS Mode --- UEFI
BaseBoard Manufacturer --- Type2 - Board Vendor Name1
BaseBoard Product --- Type2 - Board Product Name1
BaseBoard Version T--- ype2 - Board Version
Platform Role --- Mobile
Secure Boot State --- On
PCR7 Configuration --- Binding Not Possible
Windows Directory --- C:\WINDOWS
System Directory --- C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device --- \Device\HarddiskVolume2
Locale --- United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer --- Version = "10.0.19041.1151"
User Name --- [not sharing this info]
Time Zone --- Eastern Daylight Time
Installed Physical Memory (RAM)--- 6.00 GB
Total Physical Memory--- 5.89 GB
Available Physical Memory--- 2.25 GB
Total Virtual Memory--- 7.52 GB
Available Virtual Memory --- 3.90 GB
Page File Space --- 1.63 GB
Page File --- C:\pagefile.sys
Kernel DMA Protection --- Off
Virtualization-based security --- Not enabled
Device Encryption Support --- Reasons for failed automatic device encryption: TPM is not usable, PCR7 binding is not supported, Hardware Security Test Interface failed and device is not Modern Standby, Un-allowed DMA capable bus/device(s) detected, TPM is not usable
Hyper-V - VM Monitor Mode Extensions--- Yes
Hyper-V - Second Level Address Translation Extensions--- Yes
Hyper-V - Virtualization Enabled in Firmware--- Yes
Hyper-V - Data Execution Protection--- Yes


So my questions, concretely, are:
1) Would a RAM upgrade make things run faster? My intuition would say no, it wouldn't help much as I'm not really trying to run multiple programs, game, stream, etc. I'm literally just trying to do some light web browsing & make the occassional powerpoint presentation, for which 6gb RAM should already suffice.
2) Would an upgrade to an SSD make things run faster? My intuition is yes, those things are amazing.
3) Any other non-hardware-replacement fixes that I should try before considering RAM upgrade and/or an SSD upgrade?


Thanks so much in advance for your help. This forum is awesome.

You might want to visit the maker's site and see what they offer in the area of bios and chipset driver.

Biggest bump is hdd>ssd.
Next is a 2x4GB kit of ram......perhaps a minor bump.