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Views: 2,955  ·  Replies: 0 
> General PC/Laptop Care
khat17
  Posted: Nov 4 2012, 07:35 AM


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Joined: May 7th 2006
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This actually came about due to a PM that I got about some heating issues and a memory upgrade. Gonna be lazy at first and just C/P the contents of the PM and add to it after.

Some processors don't generate as much heat as others and laptops (and laptop CPUs) are usually designed to be more low-profile than desktops. Where heat is concerned you should be ok for the most part. Where the RAM is concerned you don't need to upgrade to more than 4GB unless you're doing lots of multitasking or video/picture editing. If you want it for other reasons then getting the additional RAM should be fine. The problem with more memory in the past had two factors - one was the hardware and the other was the software. Most newer hardware shouldn't have this issue though.

Read this for more info on the memory issues.
http://bytespeed.bytespeed.org/forum/index.php?topic=4.0

QUOTE
Summary:
If you are running 32-bit Windows, you must live with it. You will not ever see all 4GB of RAM you've paid for show within the OS.

Detailed:
Due to an architectural decision made long ago, if you have 4GB of physical RAM installed, Windows is only able to report a portion of the physical 4GB of RAM (ranges from ~2.75GB to 3.5GB+ depending on the devices installed, motherboard's chipset & BIOS).

This behavior is due to "memory mapped IO reservations". Those reservations overlay the physical address space and mask out those physical addresses so that they cannot be used for working memory. This is independent of the OS running on the machine.

Significant chunks of address space below 4GB (the highest address accessible via 32-bit) get reserved for use by system hardware:

• BIOS – including ACPI and legacy video support

• PCI bus including bridges etc.

• PCI Express support will reserve at least 256MB, up to 768MB depending on graphics card installed memory

What this means is a typical system may see between ~256MB and 1GB of address space below 4GB reserved for hardware use that the OS cannot access. Intel chipset specs are pretty good at explaining what address ranges gets reserved by default and in some cases call out that 1.5GB is always reserved and thus inaccessible to Windows.


Where the heating issues are concerned you can either buy a laptop cooling pad and/or just use good practices. Learn where your vents are and keep them clear at all times. Don't cover the vents during usage on a bed/couch/lap as the vents may pick up dust. Periodically clean out the vents with a tin of compressed air. Get it done professionally if you can't do it yourself at least once per year - open it up and clean it out. If it's in a fairly clean environment then once every two years is fine.

Once you notice that it starts heating up on you then that's usually a sign of either blockage due to dirt/dust in the fins of the heat sink or the thermal paste requires replacement. Replacing the thermal paste should be done every 3-5 years depending on usage and heat factors.

Another thing to be wary of is ROHS parts used in a lot of newer items. With ROHS (restriction of hazardous substances) lead is left out of the soldering process which then makes the solder more susceptible to micro-cracks due to the heating up and cooling down of parts over time. Either you get one that has less ROHS parts or use good practices to ensure that the device doesn't overheat.

Persons that have seen some of the HP DV series laptops, PS3s or XBOX RROD issues should have a good idea of what I'm talking about. Heat is the enemy combined with the solder that has no lead. Newer advances in technology may rectify this but for now the only solutions are to keep the things cool or reflow if you have an error.

This post has been edited by khat17 on Nov 4 2012, 07:40 AM