Question about Ram WIN 10 IE11

[Worried senior]

I have a Dell desktop purchased in 2009. It came pre-loaded with XP, had a disk to install WIN 7 which we did a couple of years ago.

We were having issues with Win 7 that couldn't seem to be resolved, even trying to do a repair from the win 7 installation disk which gave a warning that it would cause problems if we proceeded. (I do not remember the wording of the warning).

I have computer support thru Centurylink which is our internet provider so they finally suggested we update to WIN 10. We did and I've had more problems. After getting assistance several times we were told we need more ram of which we have 2.0 which I guess is low.

The issues we are having is that the screen locks, goes black and comes back up in safe mode. Fine after shut down and restart, pages are very slow to load and we are getting a lot of pages cannot load and can't load due to a long running script.

Have any of you experienced this or know if low ram can cause these issues.

[hobbit709]

1. Being a Dell, the first thing I would do is open the case and blow the dust bunnies out.

I would get more RAM, 2 Gb is barely enough. Your best bet is to save all your data files to an external drive and then wipe the original and reinstall Win 7.

[Go Vols]

2. +1

[Worried senior]

3. We added 2.0 today

Seems to be doing much better.

Now, I got a black screen and said that the monitor resolution was wrong but it appears to be set at what it recommended. Guess I'll have to watch this.

[BlueJazz]

4. What model Dell. Specific

[Worried senior]

5. Optiplex 360

purchased in 2009.

[BlueJazz]

7. The Optiplex 360 will hold up to 4 gig of memory (2 slots, each hold 2gig of DDR2 ram. BUT, my..

...concern is the hard drive. It's 80 gig which tells me it's reaching the end of it's life. Here's a picture of an open hard drive >
.
.


.
.
See that "Arm" that sticks out and is almost touching the disk? (Like a record player)...it rides extremely close to the disk...and I mean extremely.
See the bearing in the center of the disk? That (of course) holds the disk (s) perfectly straight.
When that bearing starts to get old (Millions and millions of revolutions)..it starts to get loose and the disk starts to "wobble".
As that happens, the Arm either can't read the disk or much worse, scrapes the disk and destroys part of the data.
I think? that's probably what's happening.

Frankly, with the cost of the disk and cost of the memory plus somebody to put all that in, you'd come out cheaper and better to just buy a newer computer.
Computers have come down in price a lot...and they include Windows 8/10.

Others here may have their own opinions. Here's one that's decent.>>It comes with windows 7 pro so you COULD upgrade to 10 if you wanted to...for free (I'd stay with windows 7 pro.)
.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7606545&CatId=2627

[Worried senior]

8. We replaced the hard drive

in 20012 I believe. According to the system information we have at least 50% space left.

I'm sure it could be most anything.

Working great now with the new ram but still having the screen turning black and re-opening in safe mode. So far I've just been turning pc off and restarting.

I have looked all over the internet to see if I can find any more information. The tech support has no idea or course.

Thanks to all who responded.

[jrandom421]

6. Sounds more like video problems

Either with the hardware or the video drivers. You might check with Dell to see if there are any updated drivers to install. Long running scripts are the province of the websites you visit. Nothing you can do about that.

I'm running W1n 10 on a HP Stream 7 tablet with only 1 GB of RAM and the performance is decent.

[bananas]

9. Another likely culprit is the power supply.

Power supplies degrade over time for various reasons. Buy a replacement power supply from someplace with a good return policy, if it doesn't fix it return it.

Before you do that, try these things:

1) Open the case and reseat all the connectors - just disconnect and reconnect them. Obviously, do this with the computer unplugged. This cleans corrosion which forms between the connector surfaces.

2) With the case open, aim a regular house fan into the box, and boot the computer with fan on high. A lot of electronic components will overheat before they fail completely. If this solves the problem, use a laser thermometer or your finger to try to find the overheating component. It may even be the power supply which is overheating.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

10. First, your RAM is way too low.

But, your screen crashing may be as a result of a virus, trojan ware, malware, etc

Have you run a scan on your PC? What anti-virus software are you using because some anti-virus software can cause problems such as what you are having.

[Worried senior]

11. I have 4 gb

of ram now since we upgraded and it's my understanding that's as much as we can add, not sure but the impression I got.

I've had Vipre on as a virus protection and I do run cc cleaner and Malwarebytes so try to keep it as clean as I can. I did take Vipre off and am running windows defender. My grandson-in-law only uses that along with the cleaners and he's not had any problems.

He's trying to help me too but right now he's overwhelmed with other things so trying to solve this on my own one way or the other.

It seems that since yesterday morning it hasn't shut down on me but I'm afraid to say too much because that's usually when stuff happens.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

12. The extra RAM may be all you needed.

So, fingers crossed!

[Worried senior]

13. Just an update.

I was going to go back to Win 7 but it said files missing so got out the restore disk for Win 7 and was going to do that.

I noticed a reset option on the recovery setting so figured I'd give it a chance. It worked, stopped getting the black screen with the low memory error.

My only issue is I had to re-install Windows Live mail and that is different than what I was used to so not sure I'll ever get it working the way it was.

The extra ram did make a big difference but I'm still not sure about Win 10 and if I'm going to keep it.

Thanks for all your suggestions.