Improving the performance of Acer Aspire AS1551

[hodigere]

Hello,

I am a student working with large excel files e.g. 282,866 kb. The file took 5 minutes to open in csv format and an almost equal amount of time to save as an excel file!

I read about performance and was advised by a friend to increase the RAM size. I understand the 64-bit windows 7 home premium can handle upto 16 gb of RAM and so I went the whole hog and inserted 2 8gb ram sticks.

There is no improvement in the performance at all. Also, the computer properties indicates that though there is 16 gb worth of RAM ony 7.75 gb is usable. This is the processor on the computer: AMD athlon II Neo K325 Dual-Core.

I am not very conversant with the internal workings of a laptop (or desktop) for that matter. Is this something that can be fixed relatively simply? If so, can someone guide me? If not also, please someone guide me.

Thanks,

renuka

 

[rgd1101]

defrag the file, a large file like that probably a slow hard drive issue.

 

[Guest]

Two things..

1) Processor, that neo is a Low Clock Processor
2) Hard Disk Speed - bet you have a 5400rpm HDD, a SSD here would make a difference.

Have you checked the taskmanager when you open the file to see what is happening to the CPU use. If it is at 100% the whole time it opens, or saves, CPU is bottleneck. if it is not, then HDD is bottleneck.

 

[darkbooton]

I agree with the defrag. I would start with a system clean: start-accessories-systems tools-diskcleanup. From there defrag.

As for the RAM issue, will the laptop itself (specs) recognize more than 8GB?

 

[darkbooton]

And every spec I find on the net on that model states it will only accept 4Gb of RAM??

 

[masterman467]

Your lappy's mobo cant recognize more then 8gb. so one stick is just being wasted atm.
SSD's would help quite a bit, but may as well just get a desktop/new lappy.
The AMD A8 lappys are really good, and not very expensive. heck, it runs minecraft at 90 fps on far... great for a laptop.

 

[hodigere]

Two things..

1) Processor, that neo is a Low Clock Processor
2) Hard Disk Speed - bet you have a 5400rpm HDD, a SSD here would make a difference.

Have you checked the taskmanager when you open the file to see what is happening to the CPU use. If it is at 100% the whole time it opens, or saves, CPU is bottleneck. if it is not, then HDD is bottleneck.

Thanks for your reply.

I checked the task manager while file was in the process of opening. When the first file was opening, the CPU usage ranged from 50%-60% with a few (less than 5 in the 5 minutes it took to open the file completely) spikes to 90%-100% range with one spike to 100%.

Then I tried to open a second file (because I need to work with upto 4 files of approximately that size together), the CPU usage in opening the second file was between 60%-70% with relatively more number of spikes but still than 10 and only a couple of spike to 100%

Does this mean that there is hope that I can continue to use this laptop for my work? or no? :-(