A few days ago, in “Taking my own advice,” I told you how I used Task Manager to objectively determine that I’ve maxed out my current hardware. It’s time for a new PC.
Several readers had interesting reactions, suggestions, and questions.
For example, App103 wrote:
Before you run out and buy a new computer, perhaps you should try something like:
Process Tamer:http://www.donationcoder.com/software/mouser/popular-apps/process-tamer
And Process Piglet: http://www.donationcoder.com/software/mouser/other-windows-apps/process-piglet
I say this because I have multiple computers in my home, one of the oldest of which is an 11 year old Dell Vostro 410, Q6600 CPU, 4GB RAM, uses SATA drives, (multi-boot with WinXP, Win7, Win10, and Xubuntu) and it’s plenty zippy enough for heavy duty work. In fact, it’s more capable than some of the ones I have with 4X the RAM.
And before you go thinking that I don’t do much with my computers other than e-mail and web surfing, I’d like you to know that I have a reputation for working my computers to death, and getting them to do things they shouldn’t be able to do.
Those 2 applications I mentioned can really help.
Reader Bill Zigrang suggested a different, but similar, app:
Re: “Taking my own advice”: Obviously, a new laptop or more RAM are the ideal solutions, but you might give Process Lasso a try to see if it results in better memory utilization. — Zig
And Reader Greg A asked:
May I ask what you’re doing on this laptop when the RAM and CPU are taxed that much?
Answering Greg’s question also addresses the earlier suggestions re: taming processes.
I use virtual PCs (VPCs) to research and answer many reader questions. Over the years, I’ve developed and maintained a library of such VPCs covering all versions of Windows back to Win98; several DOSes; and several Linuxes.
I do my writing on a heavily personalized/modified Win10 setup. When I’m answering a reader question, I’ll try to reproduce their problem on a virtual PC running a clean, unmodified copy of the same OS as the reader; and then work out a solution.
For instance, for my next AskWoody newsletter column, I needed to see how a proposed answer worked on Win10 Pro, Win10 Home, Win8 and Win7. My PC can’t run them all at once but, in routine use, it’s common for my PC to be running two or three VPCs simultaneously, in addition to running itself. Toss in Chrome (my primary browser, with mail, calendar, Keep, and other tabs always open) and Edge (which I use for WordPress-related proofing), Word (which I use for basic composing), a graphics editor, an HTML editor, and a few other things, and you can see why my system has maxed out. It’s genuine overwork!
I could always simply ask the PC to do less, at any given time; I’d work more in serial fashion rather than having many parallel operations going on at once. But that means I’d have to work slower, and my tasks would take much longer.
Similarly, the “process tamer” apps — while very cool! — really won’t help in my case. I’m running the stuff I need to do my work; paring back might keep the PC from becoming RAM-starved; and reducing process priorities might keep the UI more responsive; but at the expense of accomplishing less work overall in a given time frame.
Greg, thanks for the question! App103 and Bill, thanks for the suggestions! When a hardware upgrade isn’t an option, those process/memory tamers could be very helpful!
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