How To Add Memory To My Hp Laptop

If your laptop'south performance has you downwardly, don't simply take information technology every bit a way of life. Information technology's quite possible that past upgrading your laptop's RAM you tin can give your portable PC a boost. (For some other great upgrade, run into our commodity on how to add an SSD to your laptop.)

Does your particular laptop support a RAM upgrade? That depends. Laptop designs vary, including which components are accessible and upgradable. Because not every laptop is congenital the same, at that place'southward no style to say with consummate certainty what you can or can't upgrade.

What we tin say, however, is that almost budget laptops tend to be far more serviceable than ultra-thin, premium models. Microsoft'due south Surface devices, for example, are sealed shut, while Apple tree favors proprietary parts, with everything soldered to the motherboard.

A budget laptop, by design, is generally far more modular and leans on easily available PC parts that are more probable to be upgradable.

How to know if your laptop has a slot for more RAM

Before you spend any money or dig for a spiral commuter, the easiest style to check your laptop for open retentiveness slots, or any retention slots at all (as opposed to RAM that's soldered to motherboard), your first step is to use Crucial's free retention scanner, which will answer this question for you.

acer crucial memory scan — Crucial's Memory Scanner will tell if you have open retention slots in your laptop and what kind of RAM you tin can run.

Running information technology on a laptop, nosotros're told that there are two slots, ane of which is empty. This is the case with most affordable laptops being sold, as it adds to the flexibility of manufacturing and lowers the cost. Ane thing to note: Even if in that location is an open up slot, there may not be like shooting fish in a barrel access to the memory slot. Some laptops may crave removing the entire bottom while others feature piece of cake admission doors.

acer aspire e15 door open — This detail Acer Aspire E 15 model allows like shooting fish in a barrel access to the storage and memory trophy. Many other budget laptops do also.

For this RAM upgrade guide, our base is the most pop laptop in boondocks: Acer's Aspire E xv. This particular laptop has been the top seller on Amazon for months and months. Information technology'due south easy to see why: for $350 (and below $300 during Christmas) you go a 7th-gen Core i3 processor, 4GB of DDR4 RAM, a 1TB hard drive, and a 15-inch 1080p screen. It's a killer deal for those on a budget—merely not exactly fast.

Here's how we can exercise something well-nigh that.

How much RAM does a laptop need?

RAM is likely the easiest upgrade on any budget laptop and what almost people turn to beginning when a laptop feels "boring."

Like most affordable laptops, the Acer Aspire E 15 comes with 4GB of retention in a single DDR4 Then-DIMM module and has one open up slot.

Although there is no hard and fast rule, 4GB is about the bare minimum for well-nigh people running a full-service OS like Windows 10. Windows 10 will run on 2GB of memory, or even 1GB, but you lot'll suffer performance hits as applications and data are swapped out to the difficult drive due to lack of RAM. If you keep multiple apps or browser tabs open, 2GB of RAM definitely isn't enough.

Our recommendation is 4GB at a minimum for Windows x, and 8GB is optimal—particularly if y'all're running something more than taxing like Photoshop Elements—to amend overall responsiveness of your programs and multitasking.

acer aspire e15 ram bay — Most budget laptops fortunately feature standard DDR4 SO-DIMM slots that can be upgraded. However, most likewise come with a single piece of memory, which hobbles memory bandwidth.

There'southward ane other thing to consider in a depression-cost laptop: memory bandwidth.

Mod CPUs operate using from i to four retentiveness channels. The more memory channels that are used, the more memory bandwidth y'all go.

Similar about budget laptops, the Aspire East 15 ships with a single stick of memory, which means its Cadre i3-7100U operates in unmarried-channel mode. By filling that second slot, you kick the laptop into dual-channel mode and goose the operation in 3D tasks such as gaming. (Near part apps won't encounter whatsoever comeback from increased memory bandwidth.)

What kind of laptop RAM should you buy?

If you know your laptop has open RAM slots like our Acer E xv, it's time to hitting the store. There are two types of RAM used in laptops produced in the terminal two years and merely one offers an upgrade path: DDR4. DDR4 modules, or SO-DIMMS, are sold in varying speeds and sizes.

The most mutual laptop retentivity speeds today are DDR4/2133 and DDR4/2400. Y'all might exist tempted to get with an even college speed, say DDR4/2666, which can yield some operation benefits. Merely your CPU might not support those higher speeds—an eighth-gen Cadre i3 for example supports DDR4/2400—and will ratchet annihilation higher downward to that speed. And then don't bother paying more than for higher speeds unless you know your laptop will support it.

You may besides exist tempted to pay for lower-latency modules or modules with fancy aluminum rut spreaders. Over again, for the about part, you won't see much of performance departure at all.

We more often than not recommend that you go with a proper name-brand module that you know will offer warranty service if you practice have issues (although very unlikely.).

As far as capacity, it's generally recommended that your modules have the aforementioned capacity. For case, if you have a 4GB stick in the laptop, adding a second 4GB module to the 2nd slot makes the most sense.

If you desire to add more RAM than that, say, by adding an 8GB module to your 4GB module, it'll piece of work but the performance of a portion of the 8GB module volition be lower. In the end that extra RAM probably won't be plenty to matter (which y'all tin read more about below.)

How to install laptop RAM

1. Earlier you do anything, make sure the laptop is completely shut down (non just asleep), then unplug information technology.

2. Next, you lot need to access your laptop's memory bay by removing all or role of the laptop'due south bottom. Most vendors provide disassembly instructions in a products' service manual, which can usually be found on the website's support sections.

Fortunately, getting within our Aspire E 15 is a snap: Simply remove three screws on the expansion bay door. Note: Not all Aspire E 15s are designed this way. Some older models require the unabridged bottom cover to exist removed.

3. Next, try to discharge any built-up static electricity by touching a nearby metal object, such equally a file cabinet. If you're super-cautious, yous could buy an antistatic wrist strap, but unless y'all're working on shag carpeting on a low-humidity twenty-four hours, you lot'll probably be okay.

four. Install the memory module. The memory module has a small notch in it that should friction match up with a nub in the slot (meet picture below). If you put the memory in backwards it but won't fit, and then don't forcefulness information technology.

acer aspire e15 ddr4 so dimm notch — The notch in the memory module should line up with the slot. The top module shows about how much of the contact should be visible afterward inserted.

When you're sure you have information technology aligned correctly, put the retentiveness in at a slight angle until the contact fingers are more often than not inserted into the slot. We find that putting our thumbs on the corners commonly gives u.s.a. the leverage needed to insert the module. Once it's inserted, slowly tilt the the module down until the two metallic arms on the sides snap into place with a soft click. Gently lift each side of the module a tiny bit to brand certain it'southward locked in. It shouldn't budge.

acer aspire e15 ram at angle — Tilt the retentiveness at a slight angle and then utilise your thumbs to carefully push it into the slot until you can barely meet the gold contacts.

The memory should lie flat in the slot. If you need to remove the module, just use your fingernails to curve out the metallic arm on each side of the module a millimeter or 2. You may need to do this simultaneously depending on how strong the spring is in the slot. Once it'southward fully released, the module should bound up and so you tin remove information technology.

memory latch — The retention module should sit apartment and will be locked in place past the metal arms (in colour on this paradigm) on each side.

Volition more RAM brand your laptop faster?

For our laptop upgrade nosotros added an 8GB stick of RAM to the existing 4GB stick, tripling the capacity and increasing the retention bandwidth past going from unmarried- to dual-channel. With PCMark 8's Work Conventional benchmark, which measures standard part tasks like browsing and document editing, the results were negligible as seen below.

best budget laptop upgrades dual channel vs single channel pcmark 8 work conventional — As we expected, information technology's basically a tie between unmarried-channel and dual-channel RAM for basic computing tasks that don't use a lot of RAM.

Those tasks simply don't use that much retention—4GB is sufficient. Upgrading to 8GB helps in heavier multitasking cases. And for the vast majority of laptop users, once y'all're beyond 8GB, returns on investment are macerated. That'south why we more often than not recommend that people set low expectations for operation boosts from increased RAM.

SiSoft Sandra shows the extent to which the added 8GB module increased our theoretical memory bandwidth (as well as the relative improvement of using two 8GB SO-DIMMS). But what's the practical consequence of that boost?

best budget laptop upgrades dual chanel vs single channel sandra memory bandwidth — Going from single-aqueduct to dual-aqueduct RAM does indeed boost bandwidth, a lot.

Bandwidth helps gaming

Where information technology matters is in the integrated graphics and here's the proof. Using Futuremark's 3DMark Cloud Gate, we looked at but the graphics performance and found most a 28 percent bump by going from unmarried- to dual-channel RAM.

To test the difference between running mismatched retention modules (such every bit the 4GB and 8GB) and matched sizes, we besides ran a pair of 8GB modules. The difference is within the margin of fault—so it's just not worth sweating it.

The primary takeaway: If your gaming is on the border of being unbearable, going dual-channel may exist enough to brand information technology better.