My dad has a laptop I used to use, which has been working well so far. Recently, he got frequent out-of-memory (RAM) issues - the computer freezes, forcing to restart. It is hard to diagnose, but it might be that 8GB RAM might be too small even for light workload these days.

So, I just checked when it is produced - 2015-10. So it is now 10 years old. While I am wary of producing e-wastes, maybe that was long enough life we got out of it. Perhaps it costs more in electricity than buying a replacement laptop? So, I want to ask - is it time to retire this laptop?

  • Lippy@fedia.io
    2·
    3 days ago

    A laptop from 2015 probably has an Intel 4th or 5th gen CPU. If 8 GB of RAM is an issue, then you could upgrade it to 16 GB in theory, provided that it isn’t soldered down. That could keep it going for a bit longer if 8 GB is the only problem that keeps it from daily use. I’d say that 8 GB is about borderline these days. It’s still perfectly fine for basic web browsing but not much more.

    Even though RAM prices are in the stratosphere, DDR3 prices aren’t as badly affected, so you could get 16 GB relatively cheaply. I’d look for 2x 8 GB DDR3L-1600 SO-DIMMs. Just ensure that the laptop can accept it.

    Upgrading the hard drive to an SSD will make a huge difference for performance as well if that hasn’t been done already. Unfortunately, 2.5" SATA SSDs today are even more of a ripoff than M.2 SSDs at their current elevated prices because they aren’t really being produced anymore. At that point then yeah I agree with the sentiment that putting the money towards a new laptop will go much further.

  • finalarbiter@piefed.socialEnglish
    1·
    6 days ago

    8gb of ram shouldn’t necessarily be an issue in and of itself, although it’s on the low end these days. The memory is also old enough that it may just be failing.

    Some searching suggests you could use something like Memtest86 to run diagnostics on the memory.

    If it isn’t a hardware issue, you might have luck trying a Linux distro on it. Linux generally runs better on older machines than windows, and some distros are specifically designed to be lightweight and consume as few resources as possible.

  • Renorc@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    6 days ago

    There are lots of variables in computers that can determine whether to continue using it, but if it was a quality computer and not just the cheapest laptop available it could be worth saving. I’m using a 20 year old Dell XPS and for web browsing and email it’s fine. Try reloading the operating system with a fresh install. First save any files you need to keep to an external drive or cloud system. Assuming windows, use the latest OS you can, prob Win 10. Or try Linux mint.