How much RAM do you need, should you upgrade it, and will it speed up your PC? | ExtremeTech

How much RAM do you need?

How much RAM you need in a system depends on what you intend to do with it, how long you intend to keep it, and whether or not you can upgrade your memory post-purchase. This last point is important, as many high-end laptops have eliminated user-upgradeable RAM in order to reduce system thickness by roughly six nanometers.

Adding additional RAM to any laptop generally increases power consumption by a measurable (if small) amount, but this shouldn’t be an issue for most users. It’s also better to have a bit too much RAM than too little, as whatever you gain in power savings you’ll promptly lose to increased disk paging.

Apple’s MacBook Air offers 4GB of RAM, but most of the systems from Dell, HP, and other OEMs start at 8GB, and I think that’s the better sweet spot. That’s not to say you can’t get by on 4GB — you absolutely can — but 8GB gives you a bit more breathing room.

Check out the full article ↓↓

via How much RAM do you need, should you upgrade it, and will it speed up your PC? | ExtremeTech.

Code Purple — The Compaq/HP Booby Trap

I did a full restore, reformatting the hard drive and reinstalling Windows Vista on a HP system. Everything went like clockwork…

Until I rebooted the machine. Then I got an error that there was a “Configuration error” and that I should call “Customer Care” with “Error Code Purple.” T that point, I could only power off the machine.

What in the world was “Error Code Purple,” I wondered. A quick search on the net revealed that this was a booby trap placed in HP and Compaq computers in which a “tattoo” or numerical signature of the motherboard and hardware configuration is created at the factory and encoded into the restore disks on a particular computer. When you re-install your system, it checks to make sure the system has not been modified. If you have modified your system, the “tattoo” generated by the checking program will be different than the original, and the system will not boot.

In order to fix this, you have to send in your computer to Compaq, or take it so some place like CompUSA or BestBuy where they will modify the “tattoo” so you can run your software on your computer again — until the next time you upgrade memory or swap a card or DVD player.

For a fee, of course.

But not all was lost as I found couple of interesting and simple solutions to bypass this issue and continue with the rest of the installation. Here is one of them for HP systems based on Vista.

When the screen comes up that tells you about the code purple, do this:

Hold shift key and press f10

Type this below in command prompt with spaces like shown

cd C:hpbinCheckDMI

press ENTER

Now, type:

dir

press ENTER

Now you will notice that there are bunch of files listed, we need to find CheckDMI.cmd and rename it as below.

ren CheckDMI.cmd CheckDMI

press ENTER

The file should now be changed. Exit out of command prompt and restart your computer. And walaa…

You’re done! Congrats…you just successfully fixed your Code Purple problem. Now you don’t have to waste half a month of shipping your computer back and forth from an HP tech shop to get it “repaired for free”

Missing Drivers for a dc7800p and Windows 7 | DIYTechTools.com

For reasons none of us will ever understand, though HP offers drivers for the dc7800 and Windows 7, there are a few drivers missing from the HP download page. Specifically, the HECI and LMS_SOL devices appear, after installation, with yellow check marks (no drivers installed). If the names of these rascals don’t ring a bell, they are identified in the Device Manager – as I recall – as ”Unknown Serial Port“, and, “Unkown Device“. It’s something like that – and a problem for pretty much everyone.

See more at:

Missing Drivers for a dc7800p and Windows 7 | DIYTechTools.com