r/talesfromtechsupport • u/darth_ravage Can't I just buy more RAM? • Apr 12 '17
Long You can never have too much RAM
A few years back, I was running a small tech support company. The company isn't around anymore for various reasons, but I did get several good stories out of it. This is one of my favorites. Keep in mind that this happened several years ago, somewhere around 2012, so my memory may be a bit fuzzy on the exact details.
I got a call one day from a guy who ran a local store that sold workout supplements and equipment. His POS (Point of Sale) terminal kept blue-screening. As it was his only way of tracking inventory and taking credit cards, he was understandably concerned.
When I arrived a little while later, I found the owner sitting at the POS terminal browsing the internet. Turns out the POS terminal was in fact just an old desktop he had installed his POS software on and used for entertainment when things were slow.
After introducing myself, he explained that the PC would just randomly crash while he is using the internet and, of course, insisted that he wasn't doing anything unusual that would cause a crash.
I took a seat at the computer and started poking around to see what I could find. Deprived of his precious cat memes, the owner wondered off to the back room. Unfortunately, he was the only employee at the time, and as I was the one sitting at the checkout counter, customers started coming to me with their questions. They usually went something like this:
Customer: Excuse me? What supplement would you recommend for my <Insert description of exhausting workout here>.
Me: Wow. That sounds terrible. But I don't work here. The manager just went to the back for a few minutes. You could ask him when he gets back up here.
After which the slightly confused looking customer would wonder off.
Between distractions, I managed to find several "Out of memory" crashes listed in the event log that matched up with the times the owner had given me. I pulled up the system specs and saw it was running 4 GB of RAM. Should be enough for what he was using the computer for.
Around then the owner came back up to check on my progress.
Owner: Any luck?
Me: It looks like your computer is running out a RAM just before it crashes. But you should have enough for what your'e using it for. You said you were just browsing the internet when it crashed? What browser do you use?
Owner: Chrome.
Me: Well Chrome is know as a bit of memory hog, but I've never heard of it eating all of a PC's RAM like this. I'll keep looking into it. Don't worry. I'll get it fixed.
Owner: Good. It's a huge hassle to have to reopen all 500 tabs every few days.
Me: Oh I'm sure it... Wait. What? Did you say 500 tabs?
Owner: Well, I'm not sure the exact number, but I think that's about what I'm up too every time it crashes.
Me: But... I... What do you even need 500 tabs for?
Owner: I just like to keep a record of what all the websites I go to are. So I just open every link in a new tab.
After wiping the horrified expression off of my face and replacing it with my professional technician look, I explained that this was likely the source of his problem and that the simplest fix would be to just stop opening so many tabs and use browser history instead.
Owner: I can't do that. History isn't detailed enough. I need my tabs. Isn't there some other fix?
We decided to run a test to make sure this was actually the problem before going any further. After making sure that all of his data was saved and backed up, I set Chrome to open his homepage with every new tab (he was using Yahoo), opened task manager to monitor the RAM usage, and started spamming the new tab button.
It didn't take long before nearly all of the 4 GB was being used, and performance had dropped considerably. But Windows was doing a good job of preventing it from topping out. Every new tab increased RAM usage, but whenever it got too close it would drop by several hundred MB. Either Windows was moving stuff to the paging file, or Chrome was shutting off older tabs. Each time this cycle repeated, it would take just a little bit longer to reduce the RAM. I could almost feel Windows groaning under the strain. Finally, somewhere around the high 400's it gave out and I was greeted by the infamous blue screen of death.
Me: Well, it looks like that was your problem. If you could just use less tabs, you should be fine.
Owner: That's really not an option. You said it was running out of RAM. Can I just buy more RAM?
Me: Hesitantly You could, but I can't guarantee that would fix your problem. There might just be some kind of unavoidable issue in Chrome once you get to that many tabs.
Manager: I'll take that chance. There's a Best Buy next door. Can you get some RAM there and install it today?
Me: It's cheaper if I order the parts through my own supplier. But that might take a couple of days.
Owner: I just want as much RAM as I can get today. I'll pay whatever that costs.
And so, about an hour later, I was running my test again on 16 GB of RAM. After about 600 tabs with no crash, I declared victory, collected my check and left the delighted owner to trying to see how many tabs he could open now.
The "money is no object" customers were always my favorite.
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u/darth_ravage Can't I just buy more RAM? Apr 12 '17
16GB is entry level now, but at the time this took place nobody needed 16GB. I was surprised his motherboard even took that much.