Is this normal for Windows 11??

Esotericnoob · Jul 5, 2022

Hello!

I bought a HP 15-DW1402NO 15,6" laptop for 5500NOK, about 560USD. It came with windows 11 installed, and I was for sure happy about that.

The problem is that it crashes all the flipping time, I can't have more than a couple of Google Chrome tabs open before it shuts down Chrome. If I try to run both Chrome and Spotify the computer crashes. I've tried to google and ram usage seems to vary a lot from different post. I found comparisons between W11 and W10 which show approximately the same ram usage for both operating systems...

I've posted prntscrn from task manager down below. Is this normal..? Would it help to reinstall W11, or should I downgrade to W10? My old laptop had 4GB ram, and that was more than enough for schoolwork, and I could have like 15 tabbs open, no problem...

HP Laptop 15-dw1402no Produktspesifikasjoner | HP® Brukerstøtte

Ser du etter oppgraderingsinformasjon? Prøver du å finne navnene på maskinvarekomponenter eller programvare? Dette dokumentet innholder de tekniske detaljene for denne bærbare PC-en.

support.hp.com

4.00 GB (3.81 GB usable)
Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-10110U CPU @ 2.10GHz 2.59 GHz

DigitalGoat · Jul 5, 2022

You can try with other browsers, maybe Edge, which is Chromium based, just to see what the difference is stability wise. It is possible there might be an issue/ conflict with your sound drivers, you mention Spotify and Chrome together trigger a crash, is this when playing music or just with both apps and some tabs open?
Try a different player app, Windows media player for example, just to test.
Although you can run Win11 with 4Gb RAM you are pushing the boundaries I would think.
To free up memory you can try disabling as much that starts with Windows as possible, maybe turn off the Sysmain service temporarily (doesn't use a lot of RAM, but every little helps when testing), maybe try increasing virtual memory.
Unless you are overclocking the laptop, which I am not even sure is possible, I have to query the use of XTU, unless it is used as a hook for some HP or 3rd party monitoring software.
Don't make too many changes at once, reboot between changes and as always suggested on these forums, make a system image (and rescue disk, and TEST it) before tinkering just in case, Macrium Reflect Free is often recommended by users on these forums and there are some excellent tutorials on using it.

Ghot · Jul 5, 2022

My Win 10 and my Win 11 use between 3 and 5GB of RAM, normally.

With Firefox open with 4 tabs, and not restarting for a few days, my RAM usage was sitting at 4.8GB
After restart, with same things open... I'm sitting at 3.0GB.

In other words... 4GB isn't really enough RAM anymore, unless you plan on restarting a lot.

I don't have a lot of things running in the background either.
I don't use Widgets or News and Interests, just about all the Windows apps are gone.

I have AIDA64 and Bitdefender running, and my Firefox with the usual 4 tabs... that's about it.

zbook · Jul 5, 2022

The image displayed that the computer is using 1 of 2 DIMM.

Run the Crucial scanner and view RAM options:

Crucial System Scanner | Memory Upgrade Scanner | Crucial

Upgrade your system storage with our range of solid state drives. Find prices, specs and customer reviews to help choose the best device for you.

www.crucial.com

Ghot · Jul 5, 2022

zbook said:
The image displayed that the computer is using 1 of 2 DIMM.

Run the Crucial scanner and view RAM options:

Crucial System Scanner | Memory Upgrade Scanner | Crucial

Upgrade your system storage with our range of solid state drives. Find prices, specs and customer reviews to help choose the best device for you.

www.crucial.com

THIS

Or if you bought it in a store... take it back and tell them to put another 4GB of RAM in there.

bronskimac · Jul 5, 2022

If there is still time, I'd send it back and get something with more ram. Although the minimum requirements for 11 says 4GB, I'd go for at least 8GB, preferably more. If you can't send it back, grab some more RAM, as zbook says the Crucial scanner will tell you what fits.

DigitalGoat · Jul 5, 2022

Also note that you have Intel iGPU which could be using up to 1Gb RAM so on top of Windows usage that would leave about 6ooMB free RAM for running apps. opening tabs etc.
Napkin math, just an guesstimate. :)

Esotericnoob · Jul 5, 2022

DigitalGoat said:
You can try with other browsers, maybe Edge, which is Chromium based, just to see what the difference is stability wise. It is possible there might be an issue/ conflict with your sound drivers, you mention Spotify and Chrome together trigger a crash, is this when playing music or just with both apps and some tabs open?
Try a different player app, Windows media player for example, just to test.
Although you can run Win11 with 4Gb RAM you are pushing the boundaries I would think.
To free up memory you can try disabling as much that starts with Windows as possible, maybe turn off the Sysmain service temporarily (doesn't use a lot of RAM, but every little helps when testing), maybe try increasing virtual memory.
Unless you are overclocking the laptop, which I am not even sure is possible, I have to query the use of XTU, unless it is used as a hook for some HP or 3rd party monitoring software.
Don't make too many changes at once, reboot between changes and as always suggested on these forums, make a system image (and rescue disk, and TEST it) before tinkering just in case, Macrium Reflect Free is often recommended by users on these forums and there are some excellent tutorials on using it.

I've tried disabling some services that someone recommended, but it didn't do much. I also tried some display settings for performance, didn't help. I've seen other people run W11 with like 1.6 / 4. So I was hoping there was a simple "your windows 11 is corrupted, reinstall" kinda solution. But after reading the answers here, I realize I have to buy some more ram.

Thanks for the help!!

Esotericnoob · Jul 5, 2022

zbook said:
The image displayed that the computer is using 1 of 2 DIMM.

Run the Crucial scanner and view RAM options:

Crucial System Scanner | Memory Upgrade Scanner | Crucial

Upgrade your system storage with our range of solid state drives. Find prices, specs and customer reviews to help choose the best device for you.

www.crucial.com

Scan didn't work. 1 out of 2 DIMMs means that there is one open slot for a new ram-brick right?

Esotericnoob · Jul 5, 2022

Ghot said:
My Win 10 and my Win 11 use between 3 and 5GB of RAM, normally.

With Firefox open with 4 tabs, and not restarting for a few days, my RAM usage was sitting at 4.8GB
After restart, with same things open... I'm sitting at 3.0GB.

In other words... 4GB isn't really enough RAM anymore, unless you plan on restarting a lot.

I don't have a lot of things running in the background either.
I don't use Widgets or News and Interests, just about all the Windows apps are gone.

I have AIDA64 and Bitdefender running, and my Firefox with the usual 4 tabs... that's about it.

I found people comparing w10 with w11 at like 1.6 GB usage, no clue how they did that.

I checked my gaming-computer and it uses about 4GB ram on a fresh boot, so i guess you're correct. I will be looking for a ram upgrade. Thanks!

Coram Daes · Jul 5, 2022

Jumping on the bandwagon here:

4GB is just too little.

My desktop, browsing this thread and another 4 tabs in Edge plus a Discord session is chewing about 5GB - that's DDR4 at 3600GHz. (A number of additional processes in the background of course).

Esotericnoob · Jul 5, 2022

Coram Daes said:
Jumping on the bandwagon here:

4GB is just too little.

My desktop, browsing this thread and another 4 tabs in Edge plus a Discord session is chewing about 5GB - that's DDR4 at 3600GHz. (A number of additional processes in the background of course).

Yeah, I'm looking for a upgrade. The store where I bought it wont upgrade it for me, so it's on my own risk. Why do they even sell laptops with 4GB ram, amazes me...

Coram Daes · Jul 5, 2022

A ram upgrade falls in "fair use" category for most vendors/manufacturers. Make sure they won't void your warranty or cause you other issues down the road.

zbook · Jul 5, 2022

Open a thread on the HP forum and call HP parts > find RAM options

This is a HP store email link:

https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/SendEmailView?catalogId=10051&storeId=10151&langId=-1

https://www.hp.com/contacthp

DigitalGoat · Jul 5, 2022

Another thing for a RAM upgrade, if you can open up the laptop, assuming HP are not going to void your warranty for something nearly every other manufacturer allows, you could always check the specifications of the actual RAM module fitted to match your upgrade choice.
Possibly a better idea would be to find out the spec of RAM the laptop can use according to HP and buy a dual matched 8 or 16Gb kit.

As for other people managing to run Win11 with less RAM, there are a number of services and features you can disable to reduce in use memory, but doing so can seriously cripple Windows functionality or even break Windows if you don't know what you are doing.

Bree · Jul 5, 2022

Esotericnoob said:
The problem is that it crashes all the flipping time.....

The answer to your question in the title is: No, that is not normal.

As others have said, 4GB is the minimum requirement for W11 and more would be better. But it should not crash just because you only have 4GB, it may be slower (with lots of swapfile activity) but should not fall over. As a test I've previously had W11 running on a machine with just 2GB RAM without any issues.

fruh · Jul 5, 2022

Esotericnoob said:
Yeah, I'm looking for a upgrade. The store where I bought it wont upgrade it for me, so it's on my own risk. Why do they even sell laptops with 4GB ram, amazes me...

Independently from how much RAM you have, you have many background apps you can uninstall from your PC and run through the browser; disable all startup apps too. You don't need apps in the background if you don't use them :). Close Steam too if you are low on RAM and you aren't using it, toghether with probably most of your OEM apps. Also, the most important service to disable is Sysmain since it fills up your RAM for no reason

Hazel123 · Jul 5, 2022

Although models vary, HP is one manufacturer I find it's easy to upgrade the RAM. I have a 14" HP Pavilion - the RAM is replaceable and I believe it is on most HP models. Whereas some laptops now the ram is soldered and not upgradeable. You just need to buy an 8gb ram stick. (The right one). The tricky bit is getting the back off. With mine it's fairly easy - the screws are all visible and posidrives - except two under the feet - so the rubber fee need removing and sticking back on again. Then the tricky bit is easing the thin back off without bending it.

I don't think a pc repair place would charge too much to do the ram replacement if you bought the ram and took it along (ie they're more used to taking the backs off).

Hazel123 · Jul 5, 2022

If you enter your serial number on this page it'll lead to the software downloads page for that model. Included on that, as well as all the drivers, there will be a link to download the manual - which should show you if there are one or two ram slots.

Official HP® Laptop Drivers and Software Download

Download the latest drivers, software, firmware, and diagnostics for your HP laptops from the official HP Support website.

support.hp.com

Hazel123 · Jul 5, 2022

This isn't your exact model but most of the DW models only have one ram slot - so it would be a case of swapping the 4gb for an 8gb. Although if the manual says otherwise, fine. Mine has two ram slots. From what I've read it depends on the processor as to whether it has one or two ram slots. The manual should tell you.