Is there any hope for my 4GB laptop? I refreshed Windows 10

My 4GB laptop is really slow. I did a fresh start, which I thought was going to reinstall Windows and delete everything, but it did not, (many, but not all, of my programs are still there). The computer is still delayed. Opening windows takes forever. Etc.

No heavy usage, I just want to use basic programs and not have to wait... much... time... for programs to open when I start whatever.

This RAM is hardwired. Cannot be changed.

ironfist said:

My 4GB laptop is really slow. ... No heavy usage, I just want to use basic programs and not have to wait... much... time... for programs to open when I start whatever.
This RAM is hardwired. Cannot be changed.

4GB should be plenty for general use, several of my machines have 4GB and they aren't slow.

You are possibly more restricted by the speed of the cpu. What is the make and model of this laptop? What processor does it have? Do you have 32-bit or 64-bit Window? (look in Settings > System > About to find out)

With 4 G of memory, it should have Win 10 32bits, not 64.
The answer to make it much faster is a SSD. As you laptop has SATA 300 you won't take full advantage of a SSD, but it still will be 3 times faster than what you have today.
You can replace the HDD with a 500G SSD (US$60) or add a small SSD (120G - US$25) replacing the ODD with a caddy to hold the actual HDD.

I find 4GB runs fine with x64 W10. As I said, several of my machines have 4GB and they all run x64 without issue. In fact using x86 on a 4GB machine would reduce the memory available to Windows. More than 1GB would be unavailable as it has to be hardware reserved for accessing the video RAM. An x64 machine can map the video RAM above the installed RAM, leaving just a few MB as hardware reserved.





We still have no idea what processor the OP has. IMHO that would be the determining factor in choosing x86 over x64. We also don't know yet if this machine has a replaceable drive. Some lower spec laptops have soldered in eMMC drives ( @ironfist's RAM is soldered in so it's possible/probable).

Your specs say i7-360qm.

Do you mean i7-3630qm?

8 year old technology; but still quad core, 8 threads; should be a decent machine even now.

When was it last performing well? A week? 6 months?

Have you at least taken a gander at Task Manager regarding CPU usage, startup programs, disk and RAM usage, etc?

ignatzatsonic said:

Your specs say i7-360qm.

They also say 'Desktop'. But the OP is asking for help with a laptop. We don't know the specs for that one yet.

Check your HDD for bad clusters too. Or at least, check its SMART status (specially 'reallocated sector count' and 'pending sectors count'). If value(s) are not zero, it means your hard drive is failing/dying.