Thanks @Osprey & @flyingkiwi . I originally wanted to go down the route of a backup of her files to an external drive/upgrade to SSD & then a "fresh start" with the current computer (I honestly think it's her drive failing that is causing issues too; it's constantly running at 100% and I had a similar issue last year with my work laptop before it's drive failed).
One thing that is often the culprit is the Superfetch service. If that's it or if you want to try disabling it, anyways, open Task Manager, click the Services tab, then the Open Services button at the bottom, then find Superfetch, stop it and set the startup type to Disabled.
I've had this come up A LOT. It happened more on 8 than 10 but it still happens on 10. On a system with an SSD you basically don't notice it but on a HDD it's a killer.
This is a great tip, I don't know if i'd have ever heard of Superfetch without it. I'll also check her current ram usage; I thought she had 8 but she might only have 4 (it's in that age range) too.FYI, a hard drive running at 100% is often because there's not enough RAM. When a system is out of RAM, it writes data that's in RAM to the hard drive in order to free up RAM; then, when it needs that data back, it reads it from the hard drive back into RAM. In essence, hard drive space is used as temporary RAM, and mechanical drives just aren't suited for that at all. In other words, there may be nothing wrong with your mom's hard drive. In fact, it's possible that there wasn't anything wrong with your work laptop's hard drive, initially, either. Instead of running at 100% because it was failing, as you assume, it could be that it failed because it was running at 100% (because there was no free RAM).
I would open up Task Manager and check the percentage above the Memory column. If it's over 75%, the laptop is definitely low on RAM and all of the hard drive thrashing is likely because of it. If it's under 75%, especially if it's under 50%, and the hard drive is still going at 100%, then RAM likely isn't the problem. It could be that you're right that the hard drive is failing, but it could also be other things. Google "hard drive 100%" and you'll see what I mean. Often, it's a malfunctioning software component. In Task Manager, sort the Disk column and see what's eating up the hard drive. One thing that is often the culprit is the Superfetch service. If that's it or if you want to try disabling it, anyways, open Task Manager, click the Services tab, then the Open Services button at the bottom, then find Superfetch, stop it and set the startup type to Disabled.
Then I'll get my mother an external HDD for pictures, internal SSD & 16gigs of ram. That should keep everything around 250 based on what I'm seeing for the parts I'd need and we all end up doing alright. Plus I get myself a decent little side project that is actually useful to people.
Unfortunately she had 350 gigs of pictures & videos last I looked... she has some difficulty with file management because she, like me, is worried about deleting things she wants so, over time, has a habit of keeping duplicates (backing up her phone photos/videos & my sisters, coping the whole phone, even if there was some overlap with a prior copy). I'd rather give her 1-2 TBs of space to work with for the foreseeable future & she works at a desk 90% of the time. The external drive is something that has been on my to-do list for her for a while.If you go that route, make sure that the laptop can even be upgraded to 16GB. Some cheap laptops will max out at only 8GB, especially if they have only one RAM slot. The spec sheet for the model on the manufacturer website should tell you the max amount of RAM, the max number of sticks and the type.
As for the rest, if the external storage is only for pictures, why not just keep them on the internal SSD or use a cheap USB flash drive? Jumping from a 256GB SSD to a 512GB is only $30 and a 128GB USB flash drive is only $20. In contrast, a 1TB external HDD is about $50. You get more space, but, if she's not going to use most of it, it's not worth the hassle, IMO. Even a bus-powered, portable external HDD is kind of cumbersome with a laptop if you move it around a lot, since you have to plug and unplug when you move around and it'll be hanging off the side if you use the laptop on your lap. I love such drives, but I don't move my laptop much and I have terabytes of data on them that just won't fit on an internal or flash drive. If I were you, I'd look for the physically smallest USB drive, one that your mom can just leave in the laptop all of the time, something that she can forget is even there, but that she can also remove and take to any other computer. You could also keep copies of the pictures on the internal drive so that she always has a backup.
Hey just just wanted to ask for some advice about getting a PC. I would use this for work nothing intense, for very light photo editing and for light gaming. Something like Civ 6, roller coaster tycoon, sim city etc. just mostly older stuff.
I know building one is always your best bet but I have other projects I'm working on so just want something out of the box and fairly inexpensive. Was just curious on people's thoughts about something like this. I would require inputs for dual screens.
HP Gaming PC Desktop - NVIDIA GTX 1050, 1TB, Core i5 QUAD, 8 GB RAM, Windows 10 - Newegg.com
Thanks!
worth noting that its an i5 2400 making it damn near impossible to upgrade without getting a new board and ram as well
I’m almost wondering if an integrated graphics chip card whatever would work fine which would also lower the cost I believe.
The GTX 1050 smokes even the best integrated graphics (about double the performance) I think that would be the Vega 11 which is integrated with this Ryzen 5:
AMD RYZEN 5 2400G Quad-Core 3.6 GHz (3.9 GHz Turbo) Socket AM4 65W YD2400C5FBBOX Desktop Processor - Newegg.com
It's probably good enough to do that job but I'd be surprised if you found something that's cheaper with it, it's basically a brand new CPU. Which is nice for upgrading (and it's a better CPU performance wise).
Where as SeidoN pointed out the one you linked actually uses a pretty old one.
Sorry you lost me a bit at the end paragraph. Are you saying I should maybe keep looking around for something with a better CPU? I’m not really in a rush whatsoever to grab something.
the 2 monitors are connected via DP. he can get 1 of them to work but not the other. any ideas?
Only one at a time on 2 separate portsAs in only one monitor will work at a time, or only one specific monitor will work and the other wont?
Daisy chained or 2 separate ports?
I'm thinking the laptop doesn't have enough gpu power to handle it?Only one at a time on 2 separate ports
I'm thinking the laptop doesn't have enough gpu power to handle it?
will do, thank you.Is it always the same port?
Sometimes ports are disabled when a laptop is docked. If one port is on the laptop and one is on the dock for instance.
It could be the GPU though, sometimes they can't drive monitors at 4k 60hz but it might run 2 at 30hz or something.
If the monitors support chaining I'd try that.