What causes typing lag - RAM, processor, both, neither?

[martin2345uk]

So I have a (very very low end) Windows AIO PC, and sometimes (though not consistently) it gets very bad typing lag, so I will type a sentence and it takes a few seconds for it to actually show on screen. It opens files, programs etc speedily, it's literally just this typing lag that bugs me. It was literally doing it 2 minutes ago on an Excel file; now it has stopped doing it and it's typing just fine.

Is this type of thing usually caused by the very low end processor? The PC is really only used for doing the occasional bit of stuff on MS Office so it's not exactly a big issue, I just wondered!

 

[mi7chy]

Probably related to low RAM and every time it swaps to storage it slows down noticeably. Try upgrading it to 8GB.

 

[Technerd108]

Do you have an SSD or spinning hard drive? That could make a huge difference. Also 4 gb ram is pretty bad. The processor is very slow by todays standards. It is a release from 2017 which is 5 years ago! It has two cores and only two threads. If upgrading ram is cheap then it would help but might not solve your problem. I would update the drivers and bios if needed as that may help. Otherwise if you don't mind the slowness then yes it is the processor and ram which are very low end.

Good luck!

 

[ian87w]

So I have a (very very low end) Windows AIO PC, and sometimes (though not consistently) it gets very bad typing lag, so I will type a sentence and it takes a few seconds for it to actually show on screen. It opens files, programs etc speedily, it's literally just this typing lag that bugs me. It was literally doing it 2 minutes ago on an Excel file; now it has stopped doing it and it's typing just fine.

Is this type of thing usually caused by the very low end processor? The PC is really only used for doing the occasional bit of stuff on MS Office so it's not exactly a big issue, I just wondered!

View attachment 1971704

Probably all of it are the reason.
How old is your computer? If it's quite old, and it has regular spinning platter hard-drive, then it could be the hard-drive.

If you don't want to buy a new computer, I would check if the components of your AIO are user acessible. Can you upgrade the drive and RAM? If yes, then I would replace the hard-drive with an SSD. That would be the first priority. If you have extra budget, upgrade the RAM to 8GB.

I have had an old laptop with just 4GB of RAM, but it had an SSD. It's still usable as long as I'm not loading many heavy websites. So 4GB RAM is low, but the hard-drive is usually the bottleneck.

 

[maflynn]

4gb is really low, and while windows will run with that much ram, its not really ideal. Also double check what you're using for storage, its quite possible you may have a spinning hard drive as opposed to a SSD.

If it were me, Id upgrade the ram to 8gb minimum, and then see about upgrading the storage.

 

[bobcomer]

4gb is really low, and while windows will run with that much ram, its not really ideal. Also double check what you're using for storage, its quite possible you may have a spinning hard drive as opposed to a SSD.

If it were me, Id upgrade the ram to 8gb minimum, and then see about upgrading the storage.

He may be running 32-bit Windows, so 4gb could be all it can use effectively. The hard drive is probably the biggest sticking point anyway.

 

[coffee06]

I've got a PC with 16 GB of RAM, 64-bit, ancient 2013 I7 processor, and SSD with Win10 and I have this exact same issue from time to time. Most of the time it moves along relatively well...then I get the lag intermittently for a while. I've tried to trace it down multiple times and it's still a great mystery. And this is with NO browser open, just Word or something similar. I think it's just a Bluetooth issue (Logitech keyboard) that harasses me from time to time.

 

[sracer]

The issue of inconsistent typing speed has nothing to do with the amount of RAM. The OP didn't mention what OS they're running nor what other software is installed on the system.

If the system has a physical hard drive, then it is possible that the drive spins down and then requires time to spin up. It is during that spin up time that keyboard input may lag. If the hard drive is failing, then the effect can be magnified.

Is there antivirus software installed? Norton and McAfee are notorious for impacting system performance.

Are there printer processes running in the background? Modern printers have "dumber" internals and rely on software for the desktop system printing to the printer to have all of the "smarts". Between auto-checking for software updates and other background processes related to printing and scanning, it can contribute to lag.