How fast should my computer 16gb ram should go

Question

Im extremely new to computers and i hope that someone could give me a very understandable answer.

So what i have here is a i5-3210M CPU @ 2.50Ghz laptop and i have installed 16gb of RAM (8gb per slot) during the first time i bought this computer in 2012.Now my friends kept complaining that my computer is too slow for a computer with 16gb ram,i checked CPU-z and here are the results

(this represents both slots)

so were my friends right or wrong? and if they're right what might have caused the problems?

Answer 1

From the comments of OP by OP

...pretty much my definition of slow is when the computer is starting or closing and when the computer is trying to load files

This means it's likely the CPU, application or hard drive. Of course, it depends on how much it's loading as well.

As it's also about the computer loading, I'd think the RAM has little or even nothing really to do with this. I'm not even sure if you're machine is actually 64-bit, I've just assumed it is.

It is impossible to answer the real cause based upon what you've given because I'm not sure what slow actually means? May be it takes 1 hour to boot up, or may be it takes an extra minute compared to your friends computer...

Regardless, it appears that the CPU and or hard drive are the likely 2 causes. The CPU isn't the fastest but should be more than powerful enough to load the (OS) so I suspect moving to an SSD is the more sensible route.

If you have a standard HDD, then you can likely run a SMART tool (You can google that), there are some great free and paid for offerings. It will give you an idea of the health of the hard drive.

So to get back to the original point, your fiend's knowledge of computers would appear to be pretty lousy - the RAM isn't the single thing which makes it fast... Yes it has an impact, but, as you're not getting crashes or out of memory exceptions, then I wouldn't worry about it. Most people only use more than 4GB for computer games or specialist apps. I do a lot of music production, so my machine has 16GB RAM and often uses 12 -13 GB!

And of course your machine is about 4 years old. Again, we have no idea what condition or environment it's in, but do you clean it out? If you take the side case off, is it full of dust? Computers naturally wear out over time, especially hard drives.

Regardless, if you see issues like this, just ask your self one question - is everything backed up, just in case something goes wrong...

Answer 2

Generally a computer that is slow accessing programs is due to three things:

1. System RAM is full and the computer is spending a lot of time paging memory out to disk. Not likely with 16GB of RAM.
2. Programs such as antivirus scanners causing a delay in data coming from the hard disk to the RAM. Or other programs inserting all their "helpers" into everything.
3. A faulty, dying or just plain slow hard drive.

Numbers 2 and 3 are more likely in this case, and can be sidestepped quite easily these days.

The easiest thing you can do is to replace the hard disk with an SSD, especially if your hard disk is smaller than the SSD.. Many come with some cloning software to move your data over and their increased performance can breathe new life into machines that seem to be showing their age.

One key to a fast system is to keep the number of various "helper" tools to a minimum. Uninstall any applications you no longer use to reduce their impact.