Solved Newbie Here, Forgive my lack of knowledge

I had to buy a computer real fast the other day because I was pressed for time to get back online for my remote job and I bought a Lenovo laptop.
After a few days it got slower, and slower, and slower . . . weird things happened, like pressing "Enter" 3 times to create 3 new lines in Notepad actually closed Notepad. and the graphics definitely did not keep up with the second monitor I plugged in, an older small LG brand.

Finally it almost totally froze so I reset Windows back to the beginning and it is working again, for now.

Any thoughts?

Welcome to the forum.
The first thing that jumps out at me looking at those specs is the sad amount of ram. IMO 8 gb is absolute minimum for 11. 16 gb or more is preferable. 4gb will not cut it if you intend to do much with the laptop. To give you an example, as I type this post, mine is using 7 gb of my equipped 32 gb of ram. All I have open is Firefox with one tab and an explorer window. Background processes are using a good chunk of it.
For them to sell a device with 4 gb of ram these days is a travesty to the buyers.

You can see how much ram you are using by right clicking on start, select task manager, click performance tab at top.

If you are within the return window, I would reset it to factory again to remove your personal info and take it back. If not, your only option is to add more ram (if the laptop provides a slot to do so. You may have bought one where the equipped ram is soldered to the motherboard and no addon slot is available) Post the exact model of the laptop and I can try to find that info for you.

If you are within the return window, I would reset it to factory and take it back

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Bingo. My thoughts exactly. Thanks.

I promise you if you spend extra to get a better equipped laptop from the get-go, you will save yourself a lot of grief in the long run. Go for at least 16 gb ram and make sure your ssd is large enough for your storage needs. Take into consideration the ssd has to always have enough space to handle windows version updates that create a windows.old folder. As far as graphics, how you use your system would be the deciding factor whether or not you would need an addon graphics card. (what apps do you use, are you a gamer, etc) Also pay attention to the processing speed. 2.5ghz or above.

glasskuter said:

I promise you if you spend extra to get a better equipped laptop from the get-go, you will save yourself a lot of grief in the long run. Go for at least 16 gb ram and make sure your ssd is large enough for your storage needs. Take into consideration the ssd has to always have enough space to handle windows version updates that create a windows.old folder. As far as graphics, how you use your system would be the deciding factor whether or not you would need an addon graphics card. (what apps do you use, are you a gamer, etc) Also pay attention to the processing speed. 2.5ghz or above.

Click to expand...

Okay, I exchanged it for a Gateway. 8 gig of ram was the biggest they had in stock.

Fyi- so that you'll know for the future, the documentation should tell you if you can add to the ram and what kind it takes. It's usually in system specs under 'memory'.
If the paperwork that came with it doesn't list specs you can find it through Gateway. You can also go to crucial.com and run their scanner.

If it has a hard disk drive running the OS - upgrading to an SSD is always a huge improvement.

Run the Crucial scanner to get a general idea of upgrade options for Drive and RAM.


Post the results URL / link into this thread.


Once you've got the operating system, drivers, and applications setup with your preferences consider making free backup images.

Then if the unexpected happens you can restore an image.