New PC Problems.

[ringway]

I got a new Acer computer for my Mum a couple of weeks ago.
I sepcified 2gb of ram. The machine was slow, so I did a system check which revealed only 1gb of ram.

Took the machine back to the local computer shop and they apologised and upgraded the memory to 2gb.

Problem now is that the machine take 4, minutes to come on and this is frustrating. Also it looks bad on me because I sourced the machine.

The shop have agreed to look at the machine (Vista Home Premium) but if I could go forearmed and as clued-up as possible I think this would be an advantage.

Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[The G.F.P]

it should take around 30 seconds to come on

im suprised you only have 2gb (not mb) of memory

my new acer aspire was only £450 from tescos and has 4gb of ddr2 & 1.2tb of hard drive & a blu-ray & a dvd writer (no monitor though)

i always find that if a machine is new and not working its best to get rid as it could end up a never ending string of problems

bring it back and say its not as described

 

[ringway]

it should take around 30 seconds to come on

im suprised you only have 2gb (not mb) of memory

Yep, that would slow it down a little..

 

[The G.F.P]

slightly

thats why i buy most of my stuff from tesco as they never ever refuse to exchange it or give a refund

computer shops love you until they have your money then your a pain in the asss and can bugger off if you have a problem

 

[Gollom]

Most odd - I replied to this not long after you posted but it vanished!

See if the BIOS is doing a full check of the memory. IMHO it only needs doing occasionally!

 

[Nibbo]

Vista should run fine with 2GB and should certainly load a lot quicker than 4 minutes.
You will probably find that there is so much preloaded cr@p on the machine that is all set to load at start up.
Removing some of these from the start up list would speed power up time and leave more memory free for running the programs you actually want to run.
Be careful though as you could disable something that you need to run your hardware which could prevent your machine from running altogether so only do this if you are confident that you know what you are doing.

 

[shakeapaw]

yup,check your bios settings,it may not be "seeing" the other stick of memory,if that doesnt work ,then take it back,it has serious issue's.
also run task master to see how many programmes are running,on a new computer anything under 33 is good.
is the computer fine once its up and running ?

 

[Dryce]

I
Problem now is that the machine take 4, minutes to come on and this is frustrating. Also it looks bad on me because I sourced the machine.

What is it doing during those 4 mins?

2GB is more than enough for Vista. Moreover the amount of memory doesn't affect startup so much compared with normal operation unless the system is up to something.

If you want to check out the system download SiSoft Sandra Lite - it's free and will give you a reasonably detailed inventory of the hardware that's in your system and also give some technical stuff on the components.

 

[Smatt]

Is it Vista 32 or 64 bit? The 32 should run quicker. Also if you have Vista 'aero' running this slows things down- select 'classic' appearance instead & this should speed it up.

 

[WLeg]

Once it has started, run MSCONFIG, select startup, and disable anything you don't need.

If you're not sure what, take a screen dump (print screen button, paste into an email), and pass it on....

Lots of programs (ie, Itunes, Adobe reader, AOL, etc) load into memory on startup, so that "should you need them" they run faster, the only problem is this theory excludes the bit about the whole machine running SLOWER as it has less available RAM to use......

 

[S400RST]

Acer PC's come preloaded with a lot of software that isnt needed and this will always slow the computer down, 2GB isnt a huge amount to run Vista on and the Acer software uses up whatever RAM's left!

Try either 4GB or a fresh install of windows with none of the other software!

 

[94mattda]

I have a Sony Vaio running Vista on 1GB of Ram and starts up in about a minute....it use to be alot quicker but its almost 2 years old now....

 

[Dryce]

Try either 4GB or a fresh install of windows with none of the other software!

It's utter and complete nonsense that an ordinary laptop or desktop should need this sort of amount of memory just to boot quickly.

The amount of RAM is possibly an issue when the system is actually doing real work and running several memory hungry applications.

But - the advantage of large amounts of memory in performance terms is to a) act as cache and reduce disk I/O and b) act as working area.

To make 4Gbytes worthwhile your software actually has to *use* it. That means workload. Before just loading a system with RAM find out what it is doing.

1) Is it waiting for something - eg. timeouts waiting for peripherals

2) Is it loading unwanted and inefficient applications.

3) Is this even a Windows issue?

 

[HughJarse]

Listen, read all the above if you want, however, its knackered, doesn't matter why its doing it, it shouldn't be; Any PC shop will know this.

Just take it back and ask them to boot it up.


( Oh and I concur 2gig of ram is absolutely fine to boot windows.
In fact I think you'll find that the winner of one of the original vista speed tests was a dual booting mac with 2gb of ram.)

 

[mb240]

I got a new Acer computer for my Mum a couple of weeks ago.
I sepcified 2gb of ram. The machine was slow, so I did a system check which revealed only 1gb of ram.

What is the exact model of the PC?

Did you receive software discs with it (i.e., an OEM version of Vista).

It's strange to buy a branded PC that is mean to come with 2GB but instead 1GB. Sounds like they may have been pulling a fast one - first step is the model number, and then compare what exact spec should be online. That is straightforward and from there we will be able to tell what type of performance it should have.

If you are not sure about what hardware is what by looking directly at it, get a dump fo what comes up using this tool:
http://www.gtopala.com/ - System Information For Windows (SIW) - it's free and gives a very accurate assessment of every bus and port in the system.

 

[Dryce]

It's strange to buy a branded PC that is mean to come with 2GB but instead 1GB. Sounds like they may have been pulling a fast one

I've seen a number of PCs for sale with misquoted RAM and disk sizes.

Add in the assumptions of the sales staff and confusion ensues.

However one would have thought that if it's a branded system such as an Acer it will come in a box that will have a label that should specify what it actually has inside.

 

[ringway]

Most odd - I replied to this not long after you posted but it vanished!

I replied to purplegoddess on the members anagram thread earlier and experienced similar odd behaviour. I expained it in my edit.

 

[ringway]

What is it doing during those 4 mins?

Zilch!
You see the Acer logo on the screen and that is it! Then after 4, minutes it is as though you have just turned on the pc and windows comes on in normal boot up time.

 

[ringway]

Many Thanks for all the information, I really appreciate it.

My OAP Mum's first PC, so she doesn't want to throw a lot of cash at it.

Local computer shop has pulled me out of the mire (system failures, data recovery, and other problems) on several occasions and didn't always charge for the service, so I felt that I owed them some loyalty by purchasing the pc for my mum from them. (I actually get a discount at PC World and know the prices available on-line.)

I asked for 2gb, machine was slow (hardly anything loaded which is why I probed into the spec of it) and discovered on 1gb.

They apologised and upgraded to 2gb.

I had a look at the label on the back of the PC (it's a mini-desktop) containing serial number etc, and saw a manufacture date of 2007 .

This was a bit of a shocker! I didn't tell mum..

I called computer shop and told them I would ring them for instructions on what to do to remedy the malady, and they said they would "talk me down..." Yeah, I know..

If this had been PC world I would have strung them up and left them there..
The personal service, handshaking, how are your children? and advice is great until you get a situation like this one..

I think, I'll have to ask for a swap over for a better machine at my expense..

Regards,

Paul.

 

[jpskiller]

is there anything external plugged in, ie printers/harddrives etc... try disconnecting to see if problem lies there, during boot process system will load drivers and check these devices