Windows 8 Memory maxed. How to free up Ram?

[BLD 25]

Hello, this summer, my wife and I purchased a new HP F9H96UA#ABA and it has windows 8. We don't have a touch screen, and like many others, I miss windows 7. It has an AMD A8 Processor, and 4gb of ram. We are not doing intense gaming, etc, but we mostly surf, and pictures, etc. I downloaded slimcomputer and turned off a bunch of startup apps, and also background apps. It will sit at 6-7% CPU useage, and 75% RAM useage, with just some web browsers open.

I did research and it is possible to upgrade the RAM on this computer to 6 or 8GB, but it isn't supposed to be user accessible. I was thinking of going back to windows 7 thinking that it would be less of a RAM hog, but this article seemed to suggest otherwise.

(can't post links yet)

anyone have any specific help, or ideas between windows 7 and windows 8 regarding RAM?

thanks!

 

[BLD 25]

Link Removed
This is the link

 

[ussnorway]

1. A correct model number would help… Down load belarc and run it http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

2. I suspect you have in fact, got the HP 15-g012dx ---


Link Removed


---Post your model number as shown by belarc and we can advise on max ram but in general 8g sounds about right.

P.s. Remove slimcomputer… this is outdated and imo complete crap.

 

[BLD 25]

yes, thank you for the reply. That appears to be the model I have. From my research, the whole laptop has to come apart to replace the ram.

Here is what Belarc shows:
Hewlett-Packard HP 15 Notebook PC 0973100002405F00001620180
System Serial Number: CND4194P7T
Enclosure Type: Notebook

 

[ussnorway]

That appears to be the model I have.

The joy of owning a hp computer is in the fact that the company supports recycling… yes well moving on;

1. Amd models have only the one memory slot that you do indeed need an aggressive attitude in order to reach.

2. The actual book for all hp 15” lappies is http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c04162986.pdf and you want to start on page 73.

To be clear, I don’t work for or want anything to do with hp computers but if you decide to do it I can confirm from experience the kingston ram model Link Removed
is compatible.

p.s. 8 does indeed use less ram than 7... 4g is the min for 8 and the only other option (besides sell it) is Ubuntu or Mint.

 

[whs]

I would check in Resource Monitor > Memory tab or in Task Manager what is using all the RAM. 4GBs should be plenty of RAM for 8.1 and normal idle usage should be around 30%.

 

[ussnorway]

I suspect the extra ram is being used by the graphics card but updating drivers and dumping un-needed 3rd party software is always a good start to getting a system running smoothly.

 

[BLD 25]

I think it is being used by the graphics, at least what the guy at Best buy told me. It is a cheap graphics card. I know the computer may be "disposable" as you say, but I am also wise enough to know that I don't need a $2000 machine to surf the web and edit pictures.

 

[whs]

I think it is being used by the graphics, at least what the guy at Best buy told me.

I don't think that this is the right answer. Check in Resource Monitor > Memory tab what the 'Hardware reserved' is. Example: