Octopus Overlords

I think.
I have a laptop. I have watched a Youtube video on how to replace the original ram that comes with the computer. Looks like I need to remove over 50 little screws and a few cables and some careful jiggling to get it apart to replace the ram. I could be wrong but the ram even looks different than the kind you upgrade with.
So to me this is something I cannot replace.
I can however easily add more ram by removing just one screw.
If I do this will the effects of the bad ram lessen?

It might reduce the frequency, but won't eliminate it. The machine can't recognize the bad areas to avoid.

Run memtest to verify.

What on earth do you have for a laptop?

The last few I opened up had very easily accessible RAM modules, side by side. They didn't hide one deep under the keyboard and one in a convenient spot under a single panel on the bottom. I don't know if I've ever encountered that and am curious to see what they did.

RAM issues are show-stoppers in my opinion. It's really hard to get into any game knowing that I've got an unknown clock ticking down on me that will end my session prematurely. It might be an hour, it might be 5 minutes.

My own RAM issues should be solved today, and I look forward to a long night of XCOM 2 instead of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.

The computer will use all the ram, so if you have a bad stick in there the computer will use it and at some point you'll see the errors again.

My litmus test on working on something new to me- Youtube. If, and only IF, I can't find a Youtube video showing someone doing what I want to do, then I reconsider doing it. Keeping track of parts is easy, if you record your steps with your cellphone camera, then play it back when you rebuild everything.

I use something like Prime95 to stress test memory when I do a new build. It might be worth running that just to make sure it's a memory issue.

Paingod wrote:My own RAM issues should be solved today, and I look forward to a long night of XCOM 2 instead of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.

Scratch that. "Shipped" and "Delivered" are not the same thing. In talking with the CS Rep, I thought he said I'd have the RAM in 1-2 days, which was awesome. Corsair just Shipped it. From Taiwan. It'll be on my doorstep on the 22nd. It's a good thing I like my DS games.

Ive gotten to where I never order from overseas unless its super cheap and i dont really need it

dbt1949 wrote:I think.

What are the symptoms that make you think it's bad RAM?

If I do this will the effects of the bad ram lessen?

I'll just agree with what the others have written above. If it is bad RAM, you'll want to remove it completely. I don't think that dilution works well in this case.

Symptoms are: all programs hesitate a lot. There is a lot longer delay in programs starting as well as when they are running. Programs take longer to complete. There is a stuttering in some programs. Other than "stuttering" and delays everything seems to be okay. Been going on for almost a year.
It seems to be visual dependent.
My other thought was the video "card" was bad but I was thinking in terms of what I might be able to fix.

I'll have to concede to others more knowledgeable than me. My ideas will probably be at least ten years out of date.

How old is this particular Windows installation? If it's a few years old, my first instinct would be a fragmented hard drive, causing the drive to need to look around a lot longer to find all the pieces necessary to run the program. Unless you've got an SSD, in which case since I don't have any experience with those, I have no idea.

In the past when I've had symptoms similar to yours, I'd first defrag the hard drive, and if that didn't help, I'd wipe the drive and re-install Windows.

Please don't do any of that though until someone else comes in here and sets me straight. I'm likely wrong.

I suppose it could also be a program running in the background that is interfering. I've even had a peripheral plugged into a USB port that caused stuttering for some strange reason, but I can't recall what it was.

A bad disc drive can cause issues when accessing the cache. It's finally how I diagnosed my issues with my current rig after like five Windows installs.

Ah, you guys are so encouraging.
I actually thought it was something important when it first happened and then in the last month or so thought it might be my ram. <sigh>
I have always thought tho to keep going with it until it dies more and then get a new. Been about 10 months now.

My first inclination is to think Windows is just gunked up. First, check and see what's booting up with Windows. I use Autoruns, which is a small free program. Run Autoruns as administrator, then see what is listed in those first couple of sections. You don't have to change anything, just look. The more things booting up with Windows, the slower your computer will run. Ideally you'll have almost nothing booting up with Windows but instead manually start what you need when you need it.

Next I'd run antivirus and Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware. Then I'd check the harddisk for errors using Windows' own tools, the use Defraggler to defrag the hard drive. At that point check how your computer is running now.

I have Webroot that I consider a superior antivirus/anti-spyware program. Had it at the time too. I looked into defragging the harddrive and evidently it does this once a week on it's own. I did it again anyways.
It actually happened while I was playing Fallout 4. Uninstalling and reinstalling that did nothing for it.