How do you handle a tech who keeps replacing endpoint devices?
Posted by neochaser5@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 485 comments
So we have this tech who has the habit of replacing the laptops even though the issue is software-related. Oftentimes he will try to troubleshoot with a very generic troubleshooting steps which is comparable to a bigbang approach and not really a logical and isolated troubleshooting. In our environment, 8gb ram on laptops is good enough. But once he sees its an older laptop and only has 8gb, he resolves to processing a replacement request and informs the users that the laptop replacement is the solution. We have been given information before that we only have limited quantity of devices and obviously if it’s a software issue we would have to fix it without replacement. Now the replacement request is passed on to the tech closest to the user and when the tech sees that it’s an issue that can be resolved without replacement, we would now have to deal with the users insisting to have it replaced as they were misinformed initially.
How can we stop him from doing this behavior or how do we deal with these misinformed users? Thanks in advance.
AThievingMagpi@reddit
8GB is not good enough these days, i would say 32GB will become the norm for users soon, as we are starting to upgrade machines to 32GB in our place. The only thing I’d say is that he shouldn’t be replacing machines as the first course of action, but if a memory upgrade can be done, go for that 👍
useredditto@reddit
Don’t run bloatware and 8Gb/250SSD is still fine for a basic office PC. Yes, it’s better to upgrade but don’t say 64GB ram is a necessity for an office PC FFS…
PeppahSG@reddit
this post has to be ragebait
Mp3ManAZ@reddit
In late 2025, on Windows 11, 8GB is not sufficient… regardless of what workload you’re running on top of Windows. 8GB is not enough for Windows 11 itself.
Replace the damn machine, or upgrade the ram in it.
TechNerdinEverything@reddit
Likely he buys the laptops from the company for cheap and sells on the market or may earn commission in secret from the vendor he uses to buy replacement devices
Techs arevnot stupid. He is making money very likely. Keep an eye on him, dont sell the device to be replaced, contact the vendors in an investigation, use your selected vendor
neochaser5@reddit (OP)
Eventhough I trust he doesn't do it, this is a good information that I could look out for. Thanks.
TechNerdinEverything@reddit
also i dont know what office work you do but i inherited a laptop from a big 4 accounting firm and did mobile development and data analytics task using chrome tabs, MS excel and data visualization tools and do it easily within 16GB of RAM. If your workload is just MS office, 8GB is ok if your budget is tight maybe. But over 16GB is overkill
neochaser5@reddit (OP)
Yes that is why we opted for 32gb on the new devices as a means of future-proofing. We also plan to do a refresh on the software we are using.
renderbender1@reddit
Remove that option from him.
But also....8gb hasn't been enough for years now. My browser almost uses that much with just Jira and a couple other tabs open.
I just talked to my friends about this last weekend, we all work IT at various businesses in my area, and pretty much everyone said that they are having discussions about making 32gb the new default standard in the upcoming year or two.
Justan0therthrow4way@reddit
My old work laptop would die with multiple Jira tickets open. Edge would just stop functioning. Drove me mental
neochaser5@reddit (OP)
Thanks but as much as possible I don't want to single him out. Although I like idea to put the layer of approval for any replacements. Thanks!
Justan0therthrow4way@reddit
I don’t think you are singling him out. Just send out a general PSA to your team to remind them to troubleshoot before replacing. Blame it on higher ups and budget.
crazyk4952@reddit
32GB and an i9 processor is our new standard.
phoenix823@reddit
We did exactly that and made 32GB the standard about a year ago.
Comfortable_Clue5430@reddit
32GB feels like the sweet spot now. plenty of headroom for multitasking and future-proofing without going overboard
gangaskan@reddit
Not my PC.
Chrome is a memory goblin even in hibernation mode.
naps1saps@reddit
Suspending tabs is the worst when it has to reload every few minutes.
tallestmanhere@reddit
Firefox seems to be slightly better with memory. I used to switch between depending on which was faster, but probably since 2020 I’ve just stuck with Firefox.
I don’t know if the browsers themselves are to blame anymore. Websites are bloated messes these days.
Gwyain@reddit
uBlock makes Firefox a no brainer at this point too, in my opinion.
tallestmanhere@reddit
lol true, I forgot Google blocked it.
Gwyain@reddit
Still works on Edge too, for the few times you need a Chromium based browser.
SleepyD7@reddit
And Edge is a lot better on memory than chrome.
xplorerex@reddit
A browser connoisseur, I see.
slide2k@reddit
16 is fine for me, but I run Linux. Not really average user friendly solution.
alwayssonnyhere@reddit
I tried 64 GB 2 years ago. I couldn’t use more than 30 unless I was running a vm. Today I upgraded to 64 gb and topped 34 GB with only 4 spreadsheets and 100 tabs. 32 is our new baseline for all new hardware. We aggressively removed 8GB machines from our environment.
Philly_is_nice@reddit
Agreed. Have a lot of users with big excel work books. Between that and the million chrome tabs these guys always have open 1x16 is just not cutting it anymore.
Ironic_Jedi@reddit
Yeah price difference is barely noticeable going from 16gb to 32gb.
StrategicBlenderBall@reddit
Cries in Apple
YkGxPu6AI3iLRxGsOyub@reddit
tbf Windows and MacOS handles RAM much more efficient. I never max out the RAM on my Macbook compared to my W11 work pc
IB768@reddit
Cries in Dell, lol. It’s bullshit the upcharge from the manufacturer.
nico282@reddit
Apple memory management is completely different. 8GB are perfectly usable in their architecture, and 16GB are plenty.
makeitasadwarfer@reddit
You are clearly not managing a fleet of 8gb Macs. It’s not sufficient.
phoenix823@reddit
I would agree that 16 is plenty still on MacOS, my 16GB M2 Air is doing great with dozens of open windows, Ollama, VS Code, and a bunch of services running. But I wouldn't touch 8GB for a new machine.
nico282@reddit
Not for a new machine, but still not a reason to immediately trash everything with 8GB like for Windows PCs
phoenix823@reddit
100% agree.
makeitasadwarfer@reddit
24gb sweet spot now for m4. 16gb will not be plenty in a year and those devices have two years left of lifecycle.
maripilis@reddit
I would agree until macOS 26. It made my M1 8GB crawl. Not updating the M2 mini until the M1 is usable again (not even talking about the disaster the new UI design is...)
nico282@reddit
I still have to upgrade, thanks for the heads up.
Sk1rm1sh@reddit
Didn't they bump up the minimum to 16gb?
Macs generally have non-replaceable internal storage. If something has to page out & in of physical memory, it hits the internal storage. Internal storage only has so many writes before it fails.
Effectively they've made their cheaper options more expensive in the long run for anyone doing memory intensive work.
nico282@reddit
If you are doing memory intensive work… you need memory, no doubt about it. But for the typical user 8GB is enough. I have an 8GB Mac Mini M2 and I use the Office suite, retouch my photos, 3D CAD with Fusion, 4K kids videos with DaVinci, everything without the computer breaking a sweat.
Continuum_Design@reddit
It’s rather shit how much RAM and hard disk upgrades cost. At purchase time of course. Can’t have the proletariat upgrading their own devices later. 😏
Dimensional_Dragon@reddit
Steve appreciates your donations
Exzellius2@reddit
Damn you Captain America! Striking the capitalism bell again! … oh wrong Steve.
HisAnger@reddit
Depending on what you do. 50% of my resources are used by general anti malware our infra enforces. As a dev ... postman, vscode, local mongo and local server debugging put me over 16gb use and 100 cpu use because security dont allow to add source folders and dev apps to exclusion list. You could argue this is not a hardware related but i do understand them. Exception can lead to breach and it is better give stronger hardware to 1% of devs than risk it. Getting close to replacement period soon... AI just put more pressure on compliance apps ...
doa70@reddit
I may need to revisit this. 16GB is still my standard, but maybe it's time. Since I make sure I have at least 64GB in my personal machines, there may be an issue that I don't even know about! ;)
GriffGB@reddit
We only just put most up to 16gb. Works fine for what they use. We even have some still on 4gb. They only use a few small apps, so works fine. Horses for courses I guess, depending on what they need or use.
hybridfrost@reddit
Same. Windows 11 just eats up RAM these days and most people run Chrome (which almost loves gobbling up RAM as well).
16GB is doable for a basic user but power users need at least 32GB these days. Or they’ll be screaming at you about sluggish performance
RequirementBusiness8@reddit
My last place went 32gb minimum, it was barely a cost difference and reduced noise. My current place I believe we have done the same with physicals, though VDI starts at 16GB. Admittedly, most of our 16GB users seem to be good. Even me, I really should be on 32gb but I’m not allowing myself to upgrade unless it’s needed.
12inch3installments@reddit
We're standardizing on 16GB right now and getting 32 only when its requested or for ourselves in IT. At $200 difference in 16 vs 32 its cheaper for us to buy a second DIMM and slap it in as needed. May seem unnecessary given the differential, but the company has been buying refurbs for the last decade, so the entire fleet has to be replaced.
cccanterbury@reddit
tech debt will get ya
12inch3installments@reddit
Very much so. In my 3.5 years here, we've been fighting tech debt and management that doesn't want to spend money, too. Now we have the confluence of Win11 & standardizing hardware, but with new leadership that isn't balking at the spend.. .yet.
Valkeyere@reddit
Yeah we don't sell 8GB machines. Win11 basically requires 16 at a minimum to be actually usable.
physicistbowler@reddit
I just came across an HP laptop with an Intel N200 & 4GB of RAM with Windows 11... What the heck??
cccanterbury@reddit
fuck 12GB. almost enough to be usable.
ShawtySayWhaaat@reddit
Barely. My personal device sits on 11 just idling lol
Finally upgraded from 16 cause of that.
MBILC@reddit
I mean they could be using a specific single app and not much else on the system, but we also know plenty of "IT" people who think they know what is best for end users...with out understanding what they do.
But I do agree, now if these are older systems already, hopefully new ones come with a minimum of 16GB.
neochaser5@reddit (OP)
YES! I agree with you, ideally we would like to give out upgrades like pancakes but we do have business requirements and budget constraints. For me personally I feel like part of being an IT person is the ability to resolve issues efficiently and effectively in conjunction to the needs of the business. This is my opinion though.
MBILC@reddit
you are dead on, and I do get it, often times our hands are tied when wanting to provide certain solutions.
For something like this, you need to frame the problem of why 8GB is not actually enough and the financial impact it actually has on the company.
There is always a $ value for everything and if you can show that for example
Mary starts their device --> wait 10 mins for it to get to windows desktop --> wait 2 mins for Teams, outlook and browser to open.
Now find out how much an hour the avg person in your company makes, and do the math.
If you can show that it is costing the company say $30 a day in lost productivity, which could be fixed by spending $30 for a 2nd 8GB stick of ram, or $50 for a 16GB, you might get support to do upgrades.
And if ram is the only issue, CPU is fine and they run on SSD/NVMes, selling the ram upgrade vs an entirely new laptop can also work in your favor.
Fast_Airplane@reddit
maybe they're just using the machines as thin client for a terminal server. in that case 8GB is enough
NSASpyVan@reddit
Was gonna say not many environments left where 8gb is "good enough".. And especially considering are they future proofing themselves by buying 8gb laptops? Or just adding more tech debt.
The solution to this is a formalized hardware standard + replacement schedule. Unless the machine is outdated or physically broken, it shouldn't need to be replaced.
That said, with reimaging taking a certain amount of time, and the re-creation of the users' environment, apps etc, also taking a certain amount of time, there is something to be said for someone who can take a look at a problem, eyeball it, maybe even take a quick whack at it, and determine, hey this can be fixed but the time to fix will exceed the time to reimage/rebuild. These are usually edge cases and not a default solution as is portrayed by OP.
neochaser5@reddit (OP)
Another issue I noticed is he does unnecessary troubleshooting which, are optimization BUT the users never really complained about. Even there is no need or patterns of such issues that require the troubleshooting (ie: disk cleanup where the user has more than 50% free disk space) to be conducted.
NSASpyVan@reddit
Back in the day if I had time I would do some preventative maintenance stuff myself. It's not necessarily a bad idea if the business is buying older hardware. But when I did it, it's because I noticed things like, this person has 10 million temp files. Or this persons' drive is 100% fragmented. Or this guys disk is redlining. It made the user happy to know they got a little extra care from me, and took me not much time as I could set it and walk away.
These days, I stick to what's requested, unless it's a critical system. I do mention things I notice to help educate users (hopefully) into doing these things for themselves.
wrt-wtf-@reddit
Also drop a kpi on him and manage him. If he’s doing this, and it’s an issue for the business, and he isn’t adjusting to business requirements, there’s a management issue.
neochaser5@reddit (OP)
This is what I am planning to do. I recently got the promotion and I plan to add business requirement KPIs both team and individually.
wrt-wtf-@reddit
Your business requirements also seem to be very low. A good IT manager will acknowledge that there is a business impact on under-powered machines and will work with other business units and triage the issue, targeting most impacted users and business processes for upgrades, as opposed to fight the dude doing what needs to be done.
The approach of choosing to punish an employee for having a good customer focus will not resolve the concern expressed about everyone suddenly wanting upgrades. If that is what is going on, then it is possible your perspective is wrong and the business needs to move forward.
Your choice as a manager isn’t to punish, it’s to get the best outcome for the organisation by making IT and enabler. It sounds like the employee was being an enabler - I’d start by seriously having a look at the issue and bringing the employee into the fold to help define 2 or 3 different machine classifications that have nothing to do with seniority, penis size, or who they know - but on the need of each user in their user.
Being an IT manager isn’t about control, it’s about proper advice and support to lift and enable the business.
neochaser5@reddit (OP)
I still have a lot to learn. I will definitely try to push to get more budget for the upgrades. Appreciate all the advice too.
wrt-wtf-@reddit
If this is being done right you don’t need to take the cost out of your budget. You take the slow laptop issue to the managers of the person who wants the upgrade - the user justifies it, you take the money and supply the machine. Most businesses use this charge back model so that IT aren’t sucked dry and chasing budget.
If they want the upgraded computer they find the new computer which includes licensing, etc.
I suggest you find an internal or external mentor on how to build up an IT budget that allows this type of thing to occur. Ultimately IT don’t care if a user has the most stupendously powerful PC on the market. If a business unit manager accepts the costs - TCO - not just purchase price, then IT is the support arm - also costed in.
IT is a thankless role, don’t make a rod for your own back or those of your colleagues - don’t take direct ownership of all things that go “ding”… IT is rarely a generator of income, it’s a service role (overhead). There is a cost to you services and support - charge back modes are one way to work this through - but you have to do the numbers in order to sort out the service fees and structures you will be charging.
jkirkcaldy@reddit
Every time someone comes to me to say that their laptop is running slow or keeps crashing etc, it’s always because it’s only got 8gb ram.
I have a load of spare dimms in my drawer now so I can just upgrade the device right then and there and most people go away so happy and I never hear from them again.
16gb is the new 8gb.
neochaser5@reddit (OP)
Thanks we do upgrade the RAMs on these whenever we get stock but 8GB does work well wtih the users as it's mostly paperworks that they do.
jkirkcaldy@reddit
Same for us, but usually when they come to me, my first question is show me how many tabs you have open in chrome. Usually it’s never less than 10-15
SAugsburger@reddit
This. If they're often replacing stuff that isn't broken or clearly EOL don't allow them to make that call. That being said I couldn't imagine running a machine with only 8GB these days unless their use was very basic. Even a web browser can use a few GBs with only a few tabs open doing nothing crazy. Any hardware so old it only has 8GB should have been upgraded with more RAM or replaced by now. Price differences haven't made sense to have so little in a few years.
neochaser5@reddit (OP)
Yeah oftentimes I would decline the replacement IF it comes to me. But for the rest of the team, they are in the impression that it's been assessed and troubleshooting led to the replacement.
neochaser5@reddit (OP)
As much as possible I didn’t want to single him out and try not to bring down his morale.
MajStealth@reddit
cryig in 8GB with browser, erp and remotetool
loopi3@reddit
You’re understating it. I hit that 32GB need years ago.
Adium@reddit
I recently had a single DIMM die in my gaming machine at home which forced me into purchasing new RAM. Settled on 128GB because it was only like $50 more than 64GB. 8GB feels like you’re throwing money away
Speeddymon@reddit
You've hit the nail on the head with the throwing money away comment. I'll have to dig up the article I read about a month ago talking about it but from what I remember I think it medically said that 8gb sticks are more expensive now than 16gb sticks in many cases, because they're in demand for some reason but memory makers stopped making them for a while.
Might have been ddr4 vs ddr5 actually now that I'm really thinking about it but I would bet the same could be applied because lots of people are upgrading from 8 to 16 just to run Windows 11 after upgrading from 10 last minute.
RunForYourTools@reddit
8GB is throwing money away which is indeed true, but the same with 128GB for a gaming machine.
Silent_Rule_S@reddit
50$ is nothing... get a job dude.
RunForYourTools@reddit
I have 192GB of DDR5 RAM but it's not for gaming, so why do i need another job?
josh6466@reddit
I'm running 64 GB at home and could use more.
Old_Sky5170@reddit
That might be the solution. If the hardware is outdated (likely with 8gb ram) you need much more knowledge about computers as you are no longer the „average hardware“ software (updates) optimize for. I often recommend new hardware at the top of midrange as the experience for inexperienced users is way better. (Replacement is due anyway so if you do it at wider intervals with new hardware you have a longer time in the „average hardware“ sweet spot)
unotheserfreeright25@reddit
32 is the new 16
Smoking-Posing@reddit
For gaming rigs, sure.
But 32gb is overkill for most corporate end users
rms141@reddit
Highly disagreed. 32 GB should be the target for corporate end users. This sub consistently underrates the RAM hunger of multitasking all day with Outlook, Excel, a few dozen browser tabs, and the constant background activities of the endpoint security app of choice. Your device specs should be high enough that there's enough headroom for a sudden change of activity without materially affecting perceived speed. That increasingly leads to a 32 GB baseline config.
sdeptnoob1@reddit
We moved to 32
PandaBonium@reddit
Yea unless this company is running a fleet of Linux lite or something 8gb is going to be the majority of issues. I'm sure every tech is sick of going to the same computers multiple times a month and sitting there for an hour running various tasks that may or may not work that can be easily fixed permanently with an upgrade. Think of how much better they could be leveraging their staff if "computer slow" was less of an issue.
Valkeyere@reddit
I can spend 50-100 bucks on new ram and make a staff member spend 30 mins less a day in a regular shift just sitting and waiting for it to load. Everybody wins here. I want to do interesting things, not spend a third of my time dealing with 'performance' issues which I'm basically bandaiding instead of just spending $100 bucks.
SAugsburger@reddit
Honestly, even if it were saving a staff member 10 mins a day it would be worth it. Relative to the typical employee salary $50 to reduce delays from applications going to the local swap due to limited physical RAM is worth it. Applications needing to make swap hits isn't as bad as it was in the HDD days, but it can still be noticeable when most things that are in physical memory already open in the blink of an eye.
bastardblaster@reddit
When I was a green L1 tech I told my IT overlords that I needed some RAM because a good portion of my day was waiting on disk thrashing. Slapped a stick in there and I was good.
I was so happy that they had your view on upgrades.
cyberfx1024@reddit
This is what my thinking is as well and why I as a ISSO upgraded my laptops and workstation on my own. My laptops both have 32gb and my workstation has 48gb but I am not having to wait around anymore for bullshit loading issues.
HisAnger@reddit
This, saving 1min for a day for an employee ... for a year, it is simple math. This will not be 1min
pdp10@reddit
Linux can run well in 8GiB, we found. macOS needs 16GiB these days for sure.
bankroll5441@reddit
This. Not only does it suck to have to fix the same "computer slow" issues for the same people but actually operating on these machines takes forever due to stuttering/freezing/crashing. The company will save themselves money in the long run upgrading devices to 16GB as it won't be a consistent time sink for both the end user and the tech.
JustSomeGuyFromIT@reddit
Most of my customers get a minimum of 16GB. 32GB is for special cases but we are getting there
OutlawFrame@reddit
So much this: Fortinet, zscaler, and Sentinel One. Eat up so much ram it’s ridiculous.
GameTheory27@reddit
Yikes! just windows with nothing else uses 8gb. Maybe give your tech a break. Must be super frustrating to work on slow POS computers.
philly4yaa@reddit
32gb is the new standard 12 months ago. If you ain't there yet, I'd heavily bet most users will be losing productivity because of it.
fingermeal@reddit
when will it become the 64gb standard? Im thinking about futire compatible and might be better to standardize at 63gb now?
Asleep-Scallion-4483@reddit
Recently had a few users running out of ram even at 32gb. 64gb sodimm is a huge jump in price, but there are 48gb kits that are only \~$40 more than 32gb kits retail. May be a good compromise whenever 32gb is too low.
DreadStarX@reddit
My company (Cloud Provider) changed the default from 8GB to 16GB. Since I am chummy with Logistics, they upgraded me to 64GB. It's been wonderful.
SublimeApathy@reddit
My team came to the same conclusion. Windows 11 with Office/Teams just sitting idle will consume almost all 8GBs and lately it seems 16 isn't really going to cut it in 6 months to a year.
hybridfrost@reddit
Yeah I was baselining at 8GB a decade ago on Windows 10 but have been doing 16 for the last 6 years or so. It’s basically up to 32GB these days though. Windows 11 just gobbles up RAM
ShawtySayWhaaat@reddit
Yup. 16 don't even cut it anymore. Finally upgraded my personal device because of that. Windows sits on 11 gigs just by itself which is insane to me but this is where we are
Swimming_Strike3@reddit
Sounds almost like a school environment to me. 8gb is standard for our current chromebook models, and we just got some new models and I can't remember if they got a ram upgrade, but I can tell you it ain't no where near 32gb.
BoringLime@reddit
I just wanted to say all the security crap that is required now requires a SSD minimum and 8 to 10g of ram, by itself. If you wanted to do something on the machines, better have 16gb min. A long time ago we ran tanium edr and the amount of resources that consumed was a site to behold.
DeifniteProfessional@reddit
My PC wasn't working very well this morning because a single TAB was eating 8GB!
mazobob66@reddit
We recently set the standard to be 500gb hard drives, also.
lesusisjord@reddit
Hopefully not actual hard disk drives, right?
mazobob66@reddit
Well...it is a minimum standard. =)
meanie_ants@reddit
I think it’s wise to move forward with it now, at least in places where it takes 5 years to replace all the machines.
NoRealName73@reddit
Standard in business right now is 16 gigs of RAM 32 is overkill eight still works but yes, it’s about to age out.
Rocknbob69@reddit
Do most generic users even need 16GB if all they are doing is Excel, Word and email? Probably not. There are only 1 or 2 users in my userbase that would EVER require more than 16GB
Shuuko_Tenoh@reddit
I work in a school district and am the first contact for support in each of my buildings. My district still supplies 8gb and I am not allowed to make hardware repairs, I have to escalate them up the chain to a higher tech. 16gb is only approved for school administration for accessing security cameras because the software will not run with less. The number of tickets I respond to daily about performance is infuriating. I wish my district would learn that teachers tend to keep a minimum of 30 chrome tabs open at all times.
joshbudde@reddit
8GB is fine in many cases. I know this isn't a loved opinion, but especially on the Macs, 8GB of RAM is plenty for task workers. At my Mac sites the biggest user of RAM on a system is Teams/Slack (both are hogs). Word/Outlook/niche scientific software all works fine.
16/32 is obviously better, but 8GB is certainly workable for many/most office workers.
Beefcrustycurtains@reddit
We have already started making 32 gb standard. 16 is barely enough to keep things running smooth on windows 11 with Google chrome, teams, and our SIEM/EDR. People always running around 13-14 gb of 16. As soon as we upgrade they are always above 16 gb.
Ur-Best-Friend@reddit
If I receive a laptop with 8GB of RAM when I start a new job I'm just gonna start looking for a new position there and then.
CyberEmo666@reddit
Most people in workplaces just use websites and ons or two applications, 8gb is well enough
Retro_Relics@reddit
Until you get the one person who cant figure out excel but can hack their way through it enough to have a sheet with like 3000 rows and in that 3000 rows several helper columns where rather than change the formatting of the cell to like "text", they force coerced it in a helper column with =text() cause thats what gpt said to do, and then does another 20 operations on it...
Shit will quickly eat 8gb of ram to itself and turn your laptop into a temporary turbojet
eyedrops_364@reddit
I have several users I’ve personally upgraded to 64 GB.
Burgergold@reddit
16gb wasn't even enough for me, I was often over 90% while only running teams, browser, remote desktop manager and a small vscode without much extension
HUNBANDI@reddit
win11 eats 8gb like nothing , min 16 is recomendded , even dell started to sell their new laptops with 16gb min
askoorb@reddit
Yeah. In Windows 11 The moment you've got Teams, Outlook, OneDrive and a browser open with two tabs you're well out of RAM, and that's before you look at any background agents like DLP/VPN/other security and monitoring stuff.
And with everything moving to WebView Edge embedded browsers (like Outlook and Teams) they can use way more RAM than the "old" native binary versions
32gb is your minimum for a laptop deployed today. And more than that for your specialist devices for developers who need to compile and debug locally and data scientists doing things with silly big datasets.
Pup5432@reddit
My laptop has memory issues with 16gb even with a lite load on it, in what world is 8gb ever acceptable in 2025.
Fritzo2162@reddit
Yeah. We have 16GB as minimum now. Our security tools alone take 8GB to run.
reddit-trk@reddit
Your tech suffers from what I call "not my money syndrome."
I'm clearly in the minority here, but the problem is NOT how much RAM these devices have and how "appalling" such little memory sounds in 2025, let alone how incompetent you are according to the experts here.
Make it a policy to try to fix before tossing anything away and explain to him the situation with the budget and how IT departments tend to lose people when things get tight.
While its gracious of you to update your post to explain yourself, you don't owe these people anything - you cam to us with a legitimate issue and instead got judged by a lot of arrogant individuals who are ignorant of your situation outside of what you initially shared.
Resident-Artichoke85@reddit
This is an issue for their supervisor. This should be a performance issue.
night_filter@reddit
My first thought is to tell him how he should handle things, and if he doesn’t, that’s a specific kind of problem.
Booshur@reddit
I can't imagine 8Gb in this day and age.
But can he remotely wipe devices? I always had my techs required to do a remote wipe if it was anything but obvious hardware failure. Last step before replacement. We do autopilot deployments so wiping and reloading is just about trivial for most users.
neochaser5@reddit (OP)
We have this as an option. Even Fresh Start, he just really prefers doing the replacement instead of troubleshooting.
Booshur@reddit
If I was his manager I'd take away purchase abilities and work on troubleshooting. Might get a PIP involved if there is an obvious lack of improvement. If I was a coworker I'd roll my eyes and frankly mind my business.
ariel132@reddit
8gb is more then enough if they use RDS (terminal servers) even with win 11 no issues, the pc act just as thin client. But i do agree for any other use 16gb ram is minimum.
MoonlightStarfish@reddit
But if they are running RDS, the "software-related problem" would be on the terminal server not on the laptop, surely?
Booshur@reddit
Yea I didn't consider if they're using RDS. But if you're running any modern web browser, 16Gb minimum.
jEG550tm@reddit
This is a pet peeve of mine but you gotta capitalise the B. GB. Small b implies "bit" not "bytes" which are 8x smaller, so 8 Gb = 1 GB
This wouldnt have been an issue had it not been for cheap marketing (internet providers advertising their speed in bits so it looks 8x higher than it actually is)
MoonlightStarfish@reddit
I'm not sure it's necessarily a marketing thing. It's just nomenclature that has stuck. I started off with a 2400 bps modem. You do the math, that's about 0.3KB per second. For a long time measuring data transmission in bits made sense.
orev@reddit
Sorry but no, “wipe and reinstall” as the default action is absolutely the wrong approach. You need to learn how to actually understand and troubleshoot things before replacing or reinstalling.
You’re not addressing the actual problem which is the tech isn’t actually trying to solve anything.
Booshur@reddit
That's not what I'm saying. I'm just offering a backstop. If the tech doesn't know how to troubleshoot that's totally different. But I don't suspect that's what's happening here. The tech is essentially being prejudiced against computers he doesn't like and the process is rewarding his bad/lazy behavior. The tech needs pressure to actually do their job. Or at least fix the system so it isn't so easy to replace something.
neochaser5@reddit (OP)
Both of you are correct, we have wipe and reinstall as a last resort for software issues and his approach are wrong as well. Sometimes he would also do unnecessary troubleshooting.
Exploding_Testicles@reddit
A refresh pushed from intune. Easy! Provisioning goes along with it. User signs in. All documents and files resync via OneDrive. Some drivers and apps need to be reinstalled, but can be from our company app store. Maybe a 2 hour down time? They need a loaner? Not a problem.
neochaser5@reddit (OP)
Yes we most likely have to add this as part of a checklist prior to replacement. Yup, we got onedrive auto-enabled and backs up, groups for the app deployments based on the role and from Company Portal as well. Thank you for the inputs!
rcp9ty@reddit
It could be an apple device... Remember they think 8gb is enough ram... Or they work at Nvidia who thinks 8gb is enough in 2025 😅
Windowsrookie@reddit
Apple no longer sells 8GB computers...But Microsoft sells Surface computers with 8GB.
attathomeguy@reddit
As of October 2024 Apple has 16GB of ram across the board on all laptops.
RJTG@reddit
Not even Apple believes that anymore. Switched 16GB this year.
CaseClosedEmail@reddit
I think most phones have more nowadays
jsellens@reddit
Do you have a documented list of trouble shooting steps and common causes that the other tech should be following? I have found that when there is a standard process, it's usually easier to convince people to take consistent, logical steps towards problem resolution. There are some who will insist on flying by the seat of their pants, but if they are ignoring the process, you may have some more leverage to influence their ways. (I'm taking you at your word, and not assuming I know more about your environment and the problems that arise than you do, unlike so many other folks replying here. Yes - in most cases, buying a general use Windows laptop with only 8GB is a sub-optimal choice, but it doesn't mean that all existing laptops are useless.)
neochaser5@reddit (OP)
I agree with you and yes 8gb still does work for our environment and the new ones come with 32gb.
We do have a knowledge base with the troubleshooting steps and surprisingly enough he is one of the contributors if kbs. It usually happens when he couldn’t fix the problem is when he starts offering replacements and it creates more unnecessary work for us overall.
jsellens@reddit
Ah, the "I have no idea what the problem is, so let's replace the laptop and see if it goes away" approach to a problem.
matthegr@reddit
If I started working there, and you handed me a laptop with 8gb of RAM, I would find a different job 😆
ReputationNo8889@reddit
2 years ago when i started i was given a laptop. I thought it was running very poorly, almost no multitastking possible. I was like let me check the RAM capacity. Turns out i got a 8GB machine. My first action was to upgrade it to 16 gb with another stick i pulled from a donor device. Now i have a device with 32GB and when in normal use, i use about 17-18 GB. When packaging software or running VM's i sometimes hit 25. Im still amazed they thought i could get by with 8 ....
Warrangota@reddit
My first PC was a hand-me-down from the previous guy, it had a then-five year old i5 with 8GB of RAM. Not great, but it did the job eventually, although I took the first chance of a recent enough donor machine to add some more for a total of 12GB. The migration from the old HDD to a new SSD instantly reduced my complaints as well.
My current personal work laptop has 16GB, and some days it's driving me insane. No way to upgrade unfortunately, the chips are all soldered. There's a good reason I'm trying to push 32GB as the new default even for office machines, sadly none of decision makers see it as an investment to save time and especially the nerves of our productivity people.
Outlook, a browser with multiple windows for different parallel tasks I'm multiplexing, WSL for server admin stuff, and it's basically all used. Now add some office documents for internal documentation stuff and it's getting painful.
Pretty sure I could make use of 64GB in some situations if I had it.
ReputationNo8889@reddit
I think the sadest part is, software optimization has basically evaporated because everyone thinks "they have enough RAM, and if not more RAM is cheap to add" so they can and do get away with an application IDLING at 1GB ram usage. Like no Joke, Outlook (New) and Teams are using 2GB of ram without me even interacting with them.
How is that acceptable? Well Microsoft dominates and sets the standards others have to follow. Sadly most descicion makers don't experience the pain of slow hardware, because they of course always have the latest and greatest. But having someone in accounting wait for 2 minutes every time he opens his Excel file is not seen as a burdon on employees and instead "acceptable"
Warrangota@reddit
There is a wide skill band in software development. The best programming is usually, when it still runs perfectly on a potato if it has to, but is making good use of the resources that are available. Unused RAM is wasted RAM, just expensive rocks in your PC case.
A mail client that uses just 64MB of RAM? Sure, it should work in some capacity, maybe with reduced functionality that by design needs more, or with terrible slowness because the software is more occupied with memory management than with the actual task. But it should run.
The more RAM software is allowed to use respectfully the more responsive it can get. No shuffling of commonly used bits of code and assets, just take them straight from memory. But be nice and don't take it all or give it back when not needed anymore, there are other processes that want a piece of the cake too.
Sadly this part is, as you said, somehow lost in time, so even the most basic functions require lots of memory.And I have no data to back this claim, but I have the feeling that Windows got worse in terms of caching in the last few generations. In times of HDD storage it was pretty common that a program started slow for the first time, but got much faster afterwards. In Linux this is (still) absolute basic design, I observe it every day. But in Windows it takes all the time every time
jam-and-Tea@reddit
I recommend a conversation with the tech. Make space to hear his reasoning and let him speak fully before explaining your side (limited machines). Once you hear his reasoning, take some time and think through it before deciding on the next action. My suspicion is that you are wrong and 8GB is not enough in your environment.
neochaser5@reddit (OP)
Thanks I will. I might be wrong but I do troubleshoot along side with the rest of the team. Often times I would take the escalations from them and fix it but like others have mentioned here, 8GB is not enough but we are progressively doing the upgrades based on budget.
jam-and-Tea@reddit
Nice! Hopefully if you explain that you are working toward it he will understand.
jar92380@reddit
Sit with the tech and ask him to show you how they are troubleshooting and maybe give them some pointers or advice. They are never going to learn until someone shows them the way
APolotical_IPack@reddit
8GB RAM on Windows 10/11 and running applications that are designed to stay open and be cross functional with others.
You might want to think again. You likely have a groundswell of employees and IT staff who think the computers and IT decision makers are terrible.
er1catwork@reddit
2 things… Need to put policy in place that all swaps need to be approved to cut that shit out. And coming from a 16gb Win11 environment, please for the love of god, go with 32gb…
neochaser5@reddit (OP)
Yes we are doing the upgrades :)
Right_Librarian_8558@reddit
Currently I remote into a workstation with Teamviewer. Signed in as Admin, launched HP Support Assistant and Windows Update manually. Thing is at 19.3GB Now imagine this is an actual user session with browser tabs and teams and files open. Go with 32GB and safe alot of headache for every single one of your users and techs. And don't do it gradually, this should be high priority. Imagine all the man hours wasted from your techs alone. Not counting users staring at spinny wheel #149 of that day.
Sea-Raise-1813@reddit
Yeah that can get messy fast. We had a similar issue and started tracking replacements with proper approval notes. Anything not hardware-related needs sign-off from a senior tech before swapping. It helps set expectations and stops users from thinking a new laptop is the magic fix every time.
neochaser5@reddit (OP)
Yeah we might need to put this in place. Thanks.
Swimming-Bed1979@reddit
If you can’t fix in 30 minutes rebuild.
neochaser5@reddit (OP)
That we have as part of the process
boredtotears001@reddit
Why do so many people on reddit ask questions like this and then just disappear? I swear I see threads like this every day now. Followup questions go unanswered and solid advice is left on the table. OPs post history shows theyve done this before too.
snollygoster1@reddit
Looking through OP’s history they appear to be in Montreal, Canada which means they’re in Eastern time. I would guess they posted this late last night before they fell asleep.
neochaser5@reddit (OP)
Indeed I am in Canada. I also have a life that's why I couldn't respond right away. Appreciate all the inputs though.
vistathes@reddit
Frankly I wonder how old this individual is and how complacent they've been in their current position. There's no way this person actually thinks 8GB is good enough in this day and age.
Software problem? Sounds like he's asking a T1 to reverse engineering apps for his company for better resource utilization but likely only pays his tech 40k or less for the work expected of a software engineer. Doesn't articulate what they mean by software issue either.
Honestly think this is a troll account.
aussiepete80@reddit
As a CIO absolutely agree with your tech. 8 GB of ram is not enough in any environment. Memory is dirt cheap. There have been many situations I've instructed my teams of they get a ticket from someone with aging hardware don't mess around just replace it. We budgeted to do so, pinning users down to make time is always a struggle - use any problem they have as the catalyst to do so.
neochaser5@reddit (OP)
Thanks for the insight. We are gradually addressing the 8GB issue. Most of the budget this year has been allocated and spent so have to wait again next year.
"- use any problem they have as the catalyst to do so." - I really appreciate this!
Exfiltrate@reddit
Your tech is right. If it has 8GB it needs to be upgraded or replaced. Who taught you to be cheap, is this coming from upper management?
neochaser5@reddit (OP)
The budget constraint is from the upper management
Warrangota@reddit
My place is a little weird about that as well. Every person gets a laptop as a personal device.
Except A, B, C, and D, because the boss himself decided they don't "need" one
whizzwr@reddit
IMHO, in 2025 old laptop with only 8GB of RAM is reasonable argument to get it replaced, or at least have the RAM added. Nowadays softwares are RAM hungry, so "software problem" can very well attributed to not enough RAM.
neochaser5@reddit (OP)
I appreciate it.
jdptechnc@reddit
I'm pretty sure you aren't the right person to "handle" them. You ask your manager to set the direction.
Crazy-Rest5026@reddit
Really it is two separate issues here.
1.) outdate hardware. Yes it needs to be replaced only when IT has the budget/hardware available. As he should not just be swapping machines out that has 8gb. (Can you add more ram)? I would go that route first before replacing. Make that mandatory to him before just replacing PC’s. Obviously use judgement here. I seen people still rocking windows 7/8 that fell through the cracks on upgrades. I get it. Those should be priorities.
2.) software related issues I would tell the L1 tech to fully uninstall and re-install and see if it fixes the software issue side. ( don’t really know what you guys are working with ect.) but this would be my baseline approach.
Uninstall software. Have a software that cleans the registry keys that software changes. Then have him do a fresh install and see if it resolves.
Cleaning registry keys and full re-install usually does the trick. Hard part is figuring out what keys were changed during install. But lucky there is software out there that can figure that shit out.
This is where I would start.
neochaser5@reddit (OP)
Thank you. Yes we do upgrade the rams on some and do so whenever we get stock. For number 2, the L1s are able to uninstall/reinstall although at the moment I am trying to improve our company portal repo to allow both install and uninstall for all the apps.
In your experience, what would you recommend for a good uninstall software? Thanks!
node77@reddit
Teach him what optimization is? I had a guy like that. It didn’t matter what the problem was, the first thing he would do is run Defrag, reboot and try again. Finally I lost it, you retarded ass fucker. The machine doesn’t have an IP address!
neochaser5@reddit (OP)
Yeah he is like that. Imagine running a disk cleanup when the requirements was to install the app and that’s it. He would run /release/renew/flushdns even if it’s an app issue and NO problem with the network. I have always told him to troubleshoot logically to be more efficient.
Delakroix@reddit
With only 8GB of RAM, I wouldn't waste my time looking for what's making stuff slow. I'dreplace it right away and keep uptime on the top of my list.
Ok_Abrocoma_6369@reddit
sure uptime matters but swapping laptops for software probs just wastes inventory and doesnt fix anything
karlsmission@reddit
You need 16gb of ram to run windows 11. that's a hill I'll die on. My guys all have at least 32gb in their laptops. Teams alone will use 4-6gb of ram.
Offer upgrades instead of replacements. Bigger SSD, more ram, etc.
ReputationNo8889@reddit
B..B..B..But microsoft says you only need 4GB minimum. So double that should be enough? No?
mmiller1188@reddit
If you have a decent NVME it probably would work at 4GB paging ... not the best, but still functional.
Granted the type of system to have a decent NVME isn't going to be the system that only has 4GB
ReputationNo8889@reddit
Yeah i doubt a system with a NVME fast enough to mitigate perfomance slowdown of swapping will ship with 4GB of ram. But if it technically runs its good enough for most people ...
KyuubiW1ndscar@reddit
I love how nobody is helping and is defending the tech 🤣🤣🤣
Gainside@reddit
You don’t fix bad tech habits—you box them in with process n data lol
canchanchan386@reddit
I'm with Mr. Endpoint Replacer guy. (🎶reaaal men of geeeniuuus🎵)
Jokes aside, Win 11 OOB will devour RAM. Office doesn't do any favors, either, especially Outlook and Excel. (Shudders) I had to beg the MSP I was with to up the specs we had on the next fleet of Lenovos we were going to order for an investment company. 16 GB gave their apps and all the add-ons room to actually work. 16 became our standard.
Vast_Fish_3601@reddit
We put 8GB in thin clients and that barely holds them over for VDI & A/V offload...
mmiller1188@reddit
I had some Lenovo thin clients at my previous (M600? or N600?) and they had 8GB of ram and some sort of neutered pentium ... basically neutered core i3.
They could barely handle the Horizon client. I can't imagine how much worse it is a few years later.
WorkLurkerThrowaway@reddit
Our thin clients have 8gb ram too lol
tdrake2406@reddit
Bunch of "wyse" guys over here
oracleofnonsense@reddit
Take the upvote and slink away quietly.
BrosefXXL@reddit
We don’t use thin clients but our RDS jump boxes all get 16gb just due to windows overhead making connections feel stuttery and slow at 8.
FractalAura@reddit
Honestly I kinda agree with dude. 8gb is nowhere near enough ram in 2025. I wouldn't use anything with less than 16gb, wouldn't build anything with less than 32gb. Thats just me though.
therankin@reddit
We have a few 8GB Windows 11 devices that have ram at 90% right after boot.
11 is an absolute monster ram hog.
I agree with you. My workstation has 64GB because that's the only number I can stay below 80% with after a few weeks. My laptop has 32GB and that feels like bare minimum for a Macbook Pro.
evenmore2@reddit
I stand with laptop replacement guy!
He is trying to prove a point without trying to prove a point.
privas66@reddit
8GB of RAM… you must be giving your clients bare Linux machines lmao
nestersan@reddit
8gb is enough?
Are you running dos ?
octahexxer@reddit
Sound like jou are living in the 90s...you dont trouble shoot anything...you do a light troubleshoot and if it struggles you should already have active backups of the users documenrs and software...you nuke it with a new image and restore the users enviroment...you have already failed your infrastructure if it all hinges on a single guy manually fixing stuff.
Dunmordre@reddit
That does depend on the users workload. Some installations are complex and take months of setting up by the user, like where I work.
octahexxer@reddit
You make a image of a clean slate of that setup...hiw do you guys still have a job?
sdeptnoob1@reddit
If only we had the storage space for that.
unionpivo@reddit
Sure whenever i can, but there is software out there, that does not work from cloud, and you can't clone because the bastard harcodes network configuration (IP's not even dns, and forget about ipv6) during the setup in proprietary binary format, so if you clone the bastard stops working. We wrote utility that enabled us to hack the config, but we are not allowed to use it, because we would loose support.
Bonus point is that software minimum requrements are 16gb, but installer needs at minimu 24 (that is unducumented, when you slam you forhead into that brick, support informs you)
So yeah, depending on how unlucky you are, there are scary things out there, that you can't just clone, and take blood sacrifice to get running.
Fortunately it works inside of VM so now that we were allowed to migrate it to VM (and that took years to convince them, and we were only allowed when old CFO retired).
Sorry venting a little.
Retro_Relics@reddit
Jesus that sounds like a nightmare to support. What field, so I never go into it and risk it? (Sounds financial, so im ok with staying out of financial IT)
unionpivo@reddit
yeah its an insurance company in Europe. I since got out of there, but my friends there tell me not much has changed.
ersentenza@reddit
No you don't unless it is a standard setup that can be provided clean of any data, which usually is not.
hellcat_uk@reddit
You surely are not keeping data, that takes months to get 'just right' on a laptop with no backup?
End user devices are cattle, not pets. Take it out back, put it out of its misery and give the customer a refreshed one with their image from autopilot or other imaging solution.
cateringforenemyteam@reddit
they are setting up computers for months.. sign me up guys. i can set up my computer for years no problems if you pay me.
Dunmordre@reddit
Well if you can tell me what I need for my job and how it should be configured you're welcome to come along and make it all nice and easy with a wave of a wand.
malikto44@reddit
I'd up that RAM capacity, like others mention. Everything is getting topped off with AI slop. I'm shipping laptops with 32-64 gigs, with 16 the bare minimum. For disk space, I'm doing 2TB, 1TB minimum so there are enough cells for write leveling.
As for replacements, have them cleared by someone. Put an approval loop in the process.
Ages ago, I worked for a hardware company selling embedded devices. One support tech always sent out, no matter what the problem was, he sent out a complete motherboard replacement. No monitor plugged in? Motherboard. Device with nothing coming in on the 48 volt rail? Motherboard. We wound up having him go through a second approval source, because at the time, he was too politically connected to be shown the door.
koshka91@reddit
I worked with a tech like that too. Was really good at repair. But couldn’t troubleshoot even simple things. It was a blinking cursor at boot and the guy replaced the screen
northrupthebandgeek@reddit
If you're running Windows on those laptops then 8GB ain't enough.
WerebatWerebat@reddit
8gb? Antiquities laptops? Give the dude a promotion and show him the Malicious Compliance thread for finding a loophole way to give your workers DECENT WORKABLE COMPUTERS to do their jobs for what sounds like a very very cheap company that doesnt plan for obsolescence of hardware.
He likely is speeding up the productivity of the entire workforce when they don't have to sit there loading pages for 3 minutes at a time.
There always seems to be money for upgrades from the "emergency" budget but never from the maintenance one.
Frankzulla@reddit
He is absolutely right, y’all are not sufficiently equipping users.
serialband@reddit
16 GB is the new minimum and has been for a few years. You could always just upgrade the RAM and save some money.
pikar6089@reddit
Why you try to fix a software which would work on another one. You just have to reset the old one and give it to the next person, who will have an issue.
Bobojobaxter@reddit
Time is money. Is it faster to redeploy a new machine or spend hours fixing the broken one? If you spend longer than it takes to get a new machine out troubleshooting maybe he is saving you time and effort?
TheMediaBear@reddit
sack him, train him, PIP him, stop him from being able to replace unless it's signed off by anothe rmember of the team.
Honestly, I'd make him to to the user and face to face apologise for telling them incorrectly.
There's a saying "you can't fix stupid!"
Real-Rope7178@reddit
32 GB you guys are nuts. Do some resource monitoring, most users are fine with 8. This is a management issue: his boss needs to tell him to stop doing this and have a written process for evaluation. Easy.
CharacterResearcher9@reddit
8gb equal FML - why do I work here. Anyone who wants to work hard can't.
elias_99999@reddit
Replace the tech?
DankestMemeAlive@reddit
8 GB and Windows 10/11 yeah, I would replace your entire fleet. As soon as you have a bit of anti-virus, or background programs running, you will essentially have a potato that can barely run an excel spreadsheet or even open a browser without it stuttering.
You should promote him, looks like he is not a bullshitter.
KershawsGoat@reddit
For real though. I'm sitting at 18gb in use on my laptop right now and this is a relatively light day for me.
_Meke_@reddit
Yeah, I would also replace any older laptops with 8gb of RAM.
jooooooohn@reddit
I thought bullshitters were the ones that got promoted?
Electrical_Space7100@reddit
I think that's how OP got their job.
Defconx19@reddit
8GB is no Bueno on win 11. Even after a fresh reboot, you're talking 2GB at idle. If the user has 3 monitors? Integrated graphics is going to eat at least 2 more. Then like you mention, EDR, Monitoring software and you're now left with like 2 free gigs if you're lucky? And the user hasn't even opened anything to work in yet!
I worked at an NPO for years and even we had a device lifecycle. You should be targeting to replace 20% of your devices a year to target a 5 year cycle.
dragonfollower1986@reddit
You teach him.
--Chemical-Dingo--@reddit
8gb hasn't been enough ram for years now... the tech is still wrong about the solution replacing hardware when its software, but you are also wrong about ram.
ChillKyle@reddit
Whenever he's doing change in configuration management, have him explain in documentation WHY his solution method is the best solution.
GiarcN@reddit
Let your supervisor know. If you are the supervisor have a discussion and document it
Vigarious@reddit
Or, you know, actually replace the laptops with only 8gb ram that are running win10/11. It’s barely enough for the OS, excel would shit on it much less more intensive apps.
GiarcN@reddit
It's not a help desk persons job to change policy. Or to decide to ignore policy and do what they think needs to be done. If one person is replacing when they get a call and everyone else isn't it's going to cause problems. It's bad enough when someone gets their replacement cycle and everyone complains because they didn't. If it's just luck of who answers the ticket it's going to get ugly.
Vesalii@reddit
On our laptops when you boot them, let teams open and that's 7GB filled. 8 is too little nowadays.
kander77@reddit
8gb yuck. My company punted the RAM problem into oblivion by mandating all new PCs have 64gb of RAM. Some even have 96.
RevolutionaryGrab961@reddit
Companies went 16gb maybe 2014-2015. I had 32GB laptop in 2017...
My personal station was 24GB RAM in 2011.
I mean... RAM allows you to quickly multitask. 8GB RAM is okie with Linux Mint and simple websites - not office suites etc. Sad truth.
BalingWire@reddit
Sounds like they've realized spending hours troubleshooting an issue is more expensive than a device swap and refurb. When I did end user support I came to the same conclusion and would reimage anything that stumped me for more than half an hour
musiquededemain@reddit
Sounds like the tech needs improvement.
stkyrice@reddit
Good Lord, spend the 100 dollars and put more memory in the laptop.
May not need to replace the whole thing but I would hate troubleshooting a laptop that's under powered.
Asleep-Scallion-4483@reddit
They probably have some old lenovo X1 carbons with soldered RAM.
Fraktyl@reddit
Assuming the memory is user replaceable. Dell has several laptop lines that the memory is soldered into the MB. We've finally gotten rid of all those.
We did standardize on 32GB as well for our systems. Remember when 640kb was enough to run a game? Yeah, I'm old.
Dunmordre@reddit
Or maybe they're so old now that spending a fortune on an employee that's hamstrung with a cheap, old laptop and demoralised to hell is a waste of money and giving them something good will help to resolve the damage done. The replacement wound probably be crap as well though.
callout25@reddit
Is your laptop 8GB? We still have a few laptops at my work that are 8GB and they are painfully slow. Unfortunately just buying another stick is not an option because the RAM is soldered.
When I was in helpdesk I would first fix the issue if it was indeed software related, but then mention to the user that they should put in a service request to upgrade their computer. Since the request has to be approved by their manager, you are under no burden to justify the costs. Personally, as IT I want all my users to have fast computers as it means less tickets for T1/2 and people are generally more appreciative of IT.
ediblediety@reddit
Dude 8 gigs was the standard in 2016 lol, he’s right
iamMRmiagi@reddit
even macs with 8G of ram struggle with chrome <10 tabs and Outlook. 32G is the norm for Windows devices, especially those without dGPUs.
That said, you can probably address this with device baselines (images, endpoint management standards, intune profiles). If it's possible - go the autopilot route, and instead of replacing devices - reimage them.
micktorious@reddit
If you think 8GB is enough to run things now you need to actually listen to your techs because it's not.
You seem to be too far removed from the actual problems they are facing to understand that fact.
transham@reddit
It very much depends on what it is being used for. While where I work we normally spec 16GB as a minimum on new machines, we have some limited places that 8GB really is fine. Mostly kiosk type applications
micktorious@reddit
Kiosk doesn't sound like it's an average worker, sounds customer facing and are you supplying these customers with laptops?
transham@reddit
No, I'm kinda summarizing it as very task specific software that hasn't really changed, or needed much change, in the past 20 or so years. If it weren't for the security side of things, many of these users would still be perfectly happy using an old XP machine, from the era when 4GB RAM would have been considered luxurious.
micktorious@reddit
This is also a blind spot, don't run XP machines anymore.
transham@reddit
We're not running that old of PCs, merely illustrating how basic the requirements are
micktorious@reddit
People need to stop IT as a money sink and start seeing it as the basic foundation of business.
Update your business if you want to make money. Make investments, don't shoe string yout IT.
WWGHIAFTC@reddit
If it's a software issue that takes more than 30-45 minutes to solve, then a replacement IS the correct answer.
Then the old device, if it meets age and standards, gets thrown into the re-image pile.
Your helpdesk will have a record of issues for this asset, and if something similar comes up again, then you know it's time to trash the device (or RMA or escalate to a experienced tech to figure out the root cause IF it's affecting other models in the same way.)
AngrySociety@reddit
Maybe you need to go sit on the helpdesk and do their role.
WWGHIAFTC@reddit
You on Linux or Windows 7?
Funny-Comment-7296@reddit
Teach him how to troubleshoot. But also — 8GB? I think my toaster has more than that now.
Secret_Account07@reddit
Really? Mines been running 4 GB and no issues. Overkill if you ask me
Funny-Comment-7296@reddit
I had to upgrade. Kept burning the toast. Too many buffer overflows.
Secret_Account07@reddit
Idk, I think the bottleneck is cpu.
What you did is a bandaid solution.
Funny-Comment-7296@reddit
Every time I overclock it, it just burns the toast more. Plz hlp
Recent_Ad2667@reddit
I believe you should give him a raise and a promotion... He's management material! LOL (What exactly is it that you do here, Bob? )
No-Arugula@reddit
In 2025, there is no environment where 8gb is enough. None.
Logical-Gene-6741@reddit
The devices I manage most have 8gb because we operate on a cloud environment.
gamebrigada@reddit
Replacing the device is IT supports hammer. It works most of the time, and some techs over utilize it.
However in many situations, it is the right solution even when it is a software problem. Would you rather the tech spend days figuring out a complex issue, or just resolve it in a couple hours by replacing the machine.
The industry trend is to make devices consumable, and it definitely has merit. I think about it all the time when I'm 2 days into a complex issue with a users device. I could have just replaced the damn system.
Egon88@reddit
Part of the way to deal with this is to make the staff person be responsible for informing the user that they do not need and will not get a new device. This will make him be more cautious as he has to walk back his own statement.
DashJackson@reddit
"I tried to do the right thing, give you a real, long term fix but the bean counters at corporate don't care about your user experience so this is what we're going to do instead..."
Consistent_Poem_3255@reddit
32GB is minimum, 256+ is ideal
buck-futter@reddit
Sounds like you work with BB.
He uses weird troubleshooting steps because he doesn't understand how anything works, and believes computers magically stop working the day they hit a certain age.
0/10 do not recommend
ddBuddha@reddit
8GB lol
SpecFroce@reddit
He needs more training and a stern hr talking to. Possible a PIP.
RavenWolf1@reddit
Standard amount of ram today is 32gb.
DheeradjS@reddit
Debatable, but 16GB is the minimum.
RavenWolf1@reddit
It is about price versus GBs and what are broadly adopted currently. I don't talk just about corporations either but PC sphere as whole. For example PC gaming sphere today goes with 32GB at least. Only fool would buy minimum today when almost same price you would get 32GB and that enables computer to last it's whole lifecycle. While 16GB would be problem at couple of years. Software and game developers always develop their software in-scope where those trends goes. Today they don't care about users who only have 8GB ram.
eddiekoski@reddit
I have the opposite problem i've kept the computers running forever
arkiverge@reddit
Lol, this post did not go how op intended.
General_NakedButt@reddit
8GB of RAM? This belongs on r/shittysysadmin lmao
shaolin_tech@reddit
You need to stop misinforming the users and let the tech do his job, since you obviously don't want to do your job.
jadraxx@reddit
While everyone here is telling you they are on his side I'll give you a correct answer. It's a managerial issue. Bring this up to your superior. It's not your job to fix other employee's performance issues, if you could even call this one. In the end you just end up looking like an ass hat. Hence everyone in here telling you the employee isn't wrong and that 8gb has been outdated for years.
ifxor@reddit
Our process involves 100% manual computer setup and configuration for each user, so all of us techs view a device replacement as a last resort
thereisonlyoneme@reddit
From a technical perspective, that may be a smart move, depending on your environment. And of course there is little info here about your environment.
From a people perspective, talk to him. If that is not working, talk to his manager. Obviously I do not know who is at what level at your company, but many times the issue is someone trying to control another person that they are not responsible for.
ZAFJB@reddit
Give him a raise.
8GB is silly
It is often quicker to delivef a reimaged device than it is to dig around to fix an obscure issue.
Recycle any laptops:
Add RAM
Reimage
accidentalciso@reddit
Promote him to management.
redtollman@reddit
How long should the tech troubleshoot with the user watching before swapping the device? If the old device is still viable, reimagine it and issue to another user.
Ok-Double-7982@reddit
IDK I am with him.
8GB RAM is good enough? You sure about that?
Old-Olive-4233@reddit
This guy is saying 8GB is fine, but, I'd bet money the machine he uses has more than 8GB.
Okay_Periodt@reddit
ijbol, no laptop works without 16 anymore
tunaman808@reddit
8GB? Seriously?
gritzngrvy@reddit
Give him a raise!
EscapeFacebook@reddit
8 GB of RAM is barely enough to run thin clients let alone a laptop. A few browser sessions of chrome can easily eat up that. If it's such a known software proble, why isn't it documented fix somewhere?
basula@reddit
Op I and it looks like many others are curious how 8gb is fine are you running Linux desktops or thin clients for remote sessions?
hobovalentine@reddit
Does your company have a refresh policy or do you just replace laptops once they break or get too old?
IMO the tech isn't wrong if your policy is to hold onto a laptop for as long as possible until its physically impossible to work on it. A typical refresh cycle is 3-4 years and the employee can request a brand new device after that time.
It also helps with budgeting as well as the more you save on your IT budget the less you get allotted to you by finance so you kind of have to justify your budget by not spending as little as possible year after year unless your company is barely profitable and really trying to cut corners everywhere.
VL-BTS@reddit
8Gb is perfectly fine
for most personal use Chromebooks.
I'm curious what size & type of storage is standard, and if there are any Windows 11 machines onsite. If OP wants, just tell the tech they're not allowed to put in replacement requests anymore, because 8Gb is fine for the company.
Then make sure there's an ad placed.
zesar667@reddit
With win11 the bare minimum is 16gb. Period
JacobStyle@reddit
Putting aside the argument that these computers are probably due for an upgrade, isn't the obvious solution going to be requiring his direct supervisor to sign off on laptop replacements?
Sn00m00@reddit
lol OP thought there was a problem. but that person is fixing the issues in that environment while everyone is 10-15 years behind. In 2013, our i7 4th gen devices had 256gb ssd with 16gb ddr3.
223454@reddit
The next time a device has issues, add more RAM to see if that fixes it. Do nothing else. IF that works, even sometimes, then the tech was right. If it doesn't, then there's something else going on. They should also be checking with task manager to see usage. I had a manager once that insisted on more RAM every single time there was an issue. That's a fairly easy thing to check. No need to guess, for either of you. It may also be possible to track RAM usage remotely, but I don't know. Also, if you're not that tech's manager, then don't worry about it. Have a conversation with their manager if it really bothers you. It's possible they're doing exactly what their manager has told them to do.
GuavaOne8646@reddit
You fire them for incompetence because they aren't doing their job properly ¯\(ツ)/¯
alivefromthedead@reddit
are you my CFO
Stargaze1534@reddit
fuckin top tier comment
AngrySuperMutant@reddit
8gb of ram enough? I just had to convince my CTO to either upgrade everyone to 32gbs from 16 (windows house) and buy new ones for those who can’t be upgrade. However, this was after extensive troubleshooting + testing.
Wartz@reddit
“8 gb ram is enough”
No actually it’s not. Stopped reading there.
RequirementBusiness8@reddit
Honestly, sounds like a problem of a tech.
You need to take the option away from him and put it around his goals for the year. Negative marks if his hardware solution was resolved by software with another tech.
It’s either laziness or incompetence. I don’t like working with those kind of techs.
nsnively@reddit
If the issue is going to take longer than an hour to fix you could almost certainly just give them a spare and reset the old one for the spare pool.
mikeyb1@reddit
8GB of memory is not enough for anyone anymore. Any current model we buy is 32GB. Lots of resource issues can present as software issues, unless we're talking about an application configuration then the tech just needs a slap.
Tech is maybe not handling it the right way, but I'm in complete agreement that they should be replaced.
Who are you to the tech in question? Peer or manager? If peer, escalate to your manager. If manager just, ya know, fuckin' talk to him.
Bubbly-Confidence724@reddit
He is correct to replace them. I agree with what everyone else is saying. You are going to see more and more problems from that level of memory, and I'd bet you already are. I really can't imagine an environment in this day and age that can confidently say "8gb is all we need"
On the surface, it makes me think you are the one not entirely informed about your own environment. That's okay, but I definitely recommend being open to some of the suggestions here.
psh_stephanie@reddit
Unless the only application on their computer is notepad, 8gb is not enough.
It's not enough for a web browser anymore. It's not enough for Microsoft Office, it's not enough for anything remotely resembling a productive employee, and it hasn't been enough for a good 4-5 years now.
16gb should be the absolute minimum and 32gb should be what you're procuring now (or have a plan to be able to upgrade to post-procurement).
FatHamm@reddit
8GB on Windows 10/11 in 2025 that seems like a crime.
BCIT_Richard@reddit
8GB and "good enough" haven't belonged in the same sentence since Windows 7.
michaelpaoli@reddit
Sounds like a management issue to me.
1101base2@reddit
When I was an aircraft mechanic we called those part swappers. No troubleshooting, no repairs, just swapping parts. Makes customers angry because they are paying for pays they didn't need, and frequently was not the you cause of the issue. Of they are unwilling to learn you could felt them to help desk (force them to start troubleshooting issues with no way to replace devices himself), but if they are unwilling or unable to learn then that is likely not the right for for them and they likely need to be but loose.
josh6466@reddit
Something to consider is the cost to debug a system. FTE time is pretty expensive, and when you take into account the end user, tech, and the 1.5x multiplier for benefits and overhead, it doesn't take a long time where replacing the hardware is the appropriate choice.
D3moknight@reddit
I support fixing the issue if you know the resolution and it's quick to diagnose and apply in less than an hour or so. If the quick fix isn't the resolution though, I stop digging and do a hardware swap to save time. All of our user file storage is cloud based, and JAMF/SCCM software deployed can be done by the user without help from a support person. Swapping a laptop out is almost always pretty painless these days. Then we can just image and redeploy their laptop with the software issue if it's in good shape, or use it as a loaner if it's a little beat up.
I don't really spend a long time digging anymore because the users I support can't be down for long. Some of them make 7 digit salaries, so downtime for them is very expensive for the company.
floatingby493@reddit
8GB is not ram enough for anyone. Just opening chrome would nearly max that out.
heisenbergerwcheese@reddit
Why haven't YOU trained YOUR staff that YOU'RE responsible for? Don't ask me what i would do, why haven't YOU done what YOU are supposed to do?!?
infinityprime@reddit
I think the last time I worked for a place that had 8GB ram laptops was back in 2010.
nVME_manUY@reddit
Are your users satisfied with the change? Is it only the 8gb users who complain?
saagtand@reddit
Do you use a Linux flavour for your workstations?
anothernerd@reddit
Quicker to replace it than fix most things these days. Give him a raise and quit wasting end user's time.
Electrical_Space7100@reddit
If it takes more than like 30 minutes to fix seriously just replace it and wipe and reimage/autopilot reload the troublemaker, it'll be faster to reload it than waste time escalating tickets to troubleshoot OS issues.
of course with 8gb no amount of makeup is going to make that pig run
exrace@reddit
Fire them.
parophit@reddit
Tell him to stop. If he doesn’t it again, write him up, if he does it again replace him.
c_pardue@reddit
with a tech who has 16GB RAM
Affectionate-Cat-975@reddit
If troubleshooting software takes 20 minutes or longer I will swap a unit with a fresh OS. Getting the person back to work with minimal interruption is better cost for the company and the users are happier. Then Take the old unit and reload winders
GroteGlon@reddit
8gb is not enough in any environment these days. 16gb is the minimum, and I'd honestly recommended 32gb.
Expensive-Might-7906@reddit
Tech is correct and the old 8GB computers need to go LOL
Rex_Lee@reddit
Have his boss tell him not to do that anymore? Come on.
Zippythewonderpoodle@reddit
To correctly correct both his behavior and the misinformed user situation, you can just stop using "good enough" computers.
You are failing your tech, not the other way around. You are giving him no path to success by asking him to perform miracles on shit hardware.
Silent_Rule_S@reddit
This sub is a fun mix of sysadmin techs but since its so popular on Reddit we also get these fun management type posts, always fun as they get raked.
FishIndividual2208@reddit
Windows 11 has 4GB ram as *minimum* requirements, add another piece of softare on that computer and you have hit your 8GB limit.
Stop being so cheap...
Muddymireface@reddit
8gb laptop does not meet minimum functional standards for someone to work from. This does indeed need to be replaced.
who_am_i_to_say_so@reddit
8gb ram is barely enough to surf the internet with. Why so low?
rkeane310@reddit
This is me at work... But I'm a system admin. I also setup devices by the 10s when I do a setup.
We went from one brand to another... And there's still folks with 8gb Gen 8 i5s and my help desk guys are like nah. Keep that bish rolling.
So many people just think because it works it's fine. But the life cycle should be 5 years max. If it's older than 5 years. Replace it.
Don't have the funds to replace it. Ask your c-suite if they'd rather a cyber event, or be proactive. Go in with the numbers and they'll suddenly find funds or you'll know it's time to find a new job.
4thehalibit@reddit
8GB is enough I use that just turning my machine on. Would be interested in your actual setup. Even if you are using thin client I’m not sure that’s enough
GullibleDetective@reddit
Hr issue
Phainesthai@reddit
Lol what? We're a 60 person company and our old fleet of laptops we bought 5 YEARS AGO had 16GB of RAM.
Mostly for Word, occasional PowerPoint and light Excel work.
Sufficient_Steak_839@reddit
Yall are fucking cheap I wouldn’t wanna work here lol
Steve----O@reddit
Did they work at Best Buy before?
chrisebryan@reddit
Win ME -> 256-512MB ram; Win XP -> 2-4GB ram; Win 7 -> 8GB ram; Win 10 -> 16GB ram; Win 11 21H1 -> 16GB ram; Win 11 24H2 -> 32GB ram. We’ll see about Win11 25H2, but so far it seems 32 is enough currently, don’t know about the Ai bloat Microsoft will enable, might bump it up to 48-64GB ram.
ilovepolthavemybabie@reddit
If you aren't "the boss," just do all the "boss documentation for them."
Just candidly transcribe what they did, what should have been done, and the impact of them doing it. You don't have to be specific; just don't be speculative. Then when you hand it over, just say straight up, "This is impacting *me.*" What happens next will tell you all you'll ever need when calibrating expectations of your employer.
Should you "have to" do this? Of course not. Would I rather be right, or rather be happy? The first couple times I did this I felt "bad," but was the team ever anything but SO much better with the problem children gone? No.
RhymenoserousRex@reddit
The problem is he’s the problem child in this scenario.
Ant1mat3r@reddit
Seems like the tech is the smart one on the team. Promote him.
chrisebryan@reddit
“8GB of ram is fine on laptops in 2025”, is this for real? My work laptop initially had 16GB, it was slow as shit, once work was happening - a few chrome tabs were open, outlook was open and a teams meeting was ongoing(ram usage 15.1GB/16GB. Mind you, it’s Windows11. Sent in a ticket for 32GB of ram. Initially got pushback, because why would you need it. Then after 2 months of them fiddling around and cleaning drive etc., gave up and installed 32GB. Now i’m utilizing 24GB on the best days and 30GB on the worst days. Everything works!
RhymenoserousRex@reddit
Give him a raise, he knows more about modern workplace needs than you do.
thenewguyonreddit@reddit
You’ve already lost credibility with me, and my only experience is reading a single Reddit post from you.
I can only imagine this guy sees you as a ridiculous penny pincher and just ignores you.
Okay_Periodt@reddit
Not defending OP, but this may be one of those orgs that sees IT as a cost center and will not spend anything unless it's already too late
The technician probably knows that modern standards require better specs, but not that they are working for a company that focuses far too little on keeping equipment current and functioning
Iceyn1pples@reddit
OP is no where to be seen here, because they came here for validation, but found out their boot licking ways are wrong. In 2012, my win7 Thinkpad fleet had 12gb (max config at the time), 8gb in 2025 is so wrong on so many levels.
SMS-T1@reddit
Fully agree.
MyLegsX2CantFeelThem@reddit
Sounds like you’re trying to stay within an unrealistic budget. Or trying to save money to look better to the higher-ups.
Stop. Your tech is right. Swallow the pride and upgrade your shit. People can’t work with slow-ass computers, and that affects business - hence what brings the money in to eventually pay YOU and everyone else’s salaries.
This shortsightedness will end up being your embarrassment.
snollygoster1@reddit
Is the “software” issue fixed once the new hardware is deployed?
Chronabis420@reddit
Is this a rage bait post?
snollygoster1@reddit
It seems like a post by a bottom level tech who thinks the company’s budget is their personal problem
fata1w0und@reddit
8 GB RAM is not enough. Five years ago, I made a policy that all end user endpoints would be minimum 16 GB. I’m considering bumping that to 24 GB in the next year or so.
hawksdiesel@reddit
We're at the 16 and bumping to 24 now...
JollyGiant573@reddit
8GB of ram with win11 and office 365 is weak for sure.
Either-Cheesecake-81@reddit
If it’s a software issue and can be fixed without replacing that laptop do that. Fix the software issue and show the user it can be fixed without replacing the laptop. Then train the tech to troubleshoot properly.
ellensen@reddit
8gb ram? I bought my laptop with 128gb ram 3 years ago
Mammoth_War_9320@reddit
Lmao 8GB of RAM… yea I’d also be recommending replacement. Fuck that noise. People are going to be complaining all the fucking time.
extraspectre@reddit
Yeah as unfortunate as it is, 8 gb doesn't meet any kind of min spec these days.
( There is a conversation to be had about failure to optimize code over the last two decades but that isn't this thread )
LongEntrance6523@reddit
You came looking for support and left with a lesson, well done!
linux_ape@reddit
OP you are misinformed one here, not this guy
desmond_koh@reddit
Let me guess, he runs DSIM and Windows Update for every problem?
He's unqualified and doesn't know what he's doing. He knows a few "troubleshooting" tools but not much else. It's easier for him to blame the computer than to roll up his sleeves and isolate the problem.
He's got to level up or let him go.
Accomplished_Sir_660@reddit
Some people where taught it's faster to replace machine than it is to troubleshoot. Because of this i bet their troubleshooting skills are lacking. Big companies tend to do this method more than smaller.
Carthax12@reddit
If the problem can't be fixed (or have a clear path to resolution) in 30 minutes, reimage or replace the PC.
That's the rule in most companies I've ever worked for, and it was my rule when I was a sysadmin many moons ago.
Imbecile_Jr@reddit
Our base model Dell laptops are coming with 32 gigs of RAM by default. 8 gigs in 2025 is a joke
ChiefBroady@reddit
A bad one at that.
ActivityLiving4517@reddit
I mean is he fixing the issues? If yes, then he may be on to something. If no, then talk to the main and train him how you want him to resolve these issues.
kayrabb@reddit
You promote him. He's more in touch with the current reality and knows 8g is not enough and is not complacent with the bare minimum. He wants to actually solve the issue, not add more temporary Band-Aids.
MrEllis72@reddit
He's not wrong.
Dru2021@reddit
Is this post by any chance created by a senior manager?
Fire_Mission@reddit
8 gigs is not enough.
ComfortableAd8326@reddit
8gb is not enough, especially if your users are reliant on any sort of web app for productivity
You might be saving your own department's budget but it's a false economy for the business due to lost productivity. You should be lobbying for more budget for a hardware refresh
jeremiahfelt@reddit
Are you this person's supervisor or in his chain of command? If so, go to him, have a conversation, shadow, do the job with him for a couple days. Dude sounds like he's trying to upgrade the fleet out of an insufficient RAM situation by attrition. If the other techs processing the upgrade requests are actually able to resolve the issue with the software - and have a process to do so - does he have notes or copy of the procedure the other techs are running? If your expectation is for him to just figure it out (you mentioned that his troubleshooting process has not been expansive).
If you're not in his chain of supervision, mind your business. Stop being a busy body and mind your panel.
ABotelho23@reddit
This thread is wild. Is this how bloated corporate Windows has gotten? 8GB is not enough to do anything?
CleverMonkeyKnowHow@reddit
Yeah, actually.
Your base OS consumes, what... 2.5 to 3.5 GB, so you're down to 4.5 to 5.5.
Your endpoint security solution is gonna eat up another .5 or so, so now we're at 3.0 to 4.0.
Open up your browser of choice, Edge, Chrome, Firefox, or Brave, now you're down to 4.5 to 5.0. By the time you get 5-10 tabs open, you're at 5.5 to 6.0.
Open up Outlook, now you're at 7.0 to 7.5 GB usage.
Congratulations, you have 500 MB of RAM for an additional program of choice.
I do agree with you though, that the expanded RAM requirements for so much shit nowadays is bananas, and it's because no one really programs for performance and efficiency anymore, because they don't have to.
You can buy 32 GB of RAM for what, $100? $200 at the most?
Microsoft's not going to task developers with doing their best to optimize the code for millions of dollars of man-hours when they can pass that cost along to you for hardware, which also helps their partners.
snollygoster1@reddit
Yeah, everything is based on a web app now which just adds a crapton of overhead compared to older native apps.
DElyMyth@reddit
You forgot Teams. Hogs up anything between 1 and 2 GB of ram just to exist
Mentally_Rich@reddit
I am the same as the person you are talking about. I was shocked that so many people where I work have laptops that are six years old with 8gb of ram. I've just been replacing them.
I say good for this tech. I know how they feel. It's a complete false economy not to replace laptops or provide decent ones.
khantroll1@reddit
This is an issue to be resolved with training and SOPs.
I was trained to do it this way. Triage, try documented/quick fixes, then replace the machine. Run automated hardware tests and re-image the old machine unless it is time to take it out circulation.
Unless things have changed, most people who come up through large healthcare and half of medium or large MSPs will be trained the same.
You’ll have to take him aside and explain that your cost/uptime model and your SLA expectations are different, and offer troubleshooting training and/or documentation on your common software glitches
SuperGoodSpam@reddit
The fact that you're here asking how to manage an employee, combined with the fact that you think 8GB is enough, tells me exactly how little I'd like to meet you.
taintedcake@reddit
Love how OP hasn't responded to a single comment out of the like 50+ because everyone here is on the tech's side lmao. There isn't a chance in hell 8GB is enough for anything even close to modern
Wonderful-Command474@reddit
8gb of ram is "good enough".. what?? I can bet 3 Chrome tabs say otherwise lol
What are your users doing on these machines?
Background_Lab_9637@reddit
Chrome doesn't struggle on non-windows OSes with 8gb ram.
Background_Lab_9637@reddit
On Windows yes. Not on a real OS.
SAugsburger@reddit
This. Chrome will start pushing you to the swap file pretty quickly. While going to swap isn't as bad as it was back on traditional HDDs the org really has to be cheap if you haven't upgraded every machine you could find with that little at this point.
snollygoster1@reddit
He’s probably right about 8GB being an issue, and so are your so-called “misinformed users”. 8GB of RAM is hardly enough to run a remote support client and is definitely going to cause issues for almost anything else.
H0verb0vver@reddit
8GB is not enough, 16 is bare minimum for Win11.
ElPsyKongreee@reddit
Bro I'm not even in this field
2c0@reddit
You're going to lose this one, 8GB is not enough if you're a Windows environment.
We're looking at 32GB being standard and that users who only require the office suite.
redstarduggan@reddit
Nice try Micron
nyckidryan@reddit
Retrain, advise of company policies, fire if he fails to adhere.
Bright_Arm8782@reddit
Talk to him and tell him to stop doing that.
Get his manager to talk to him if that doesn't work.
brispower@reddit
8gb is not enough in 2025, he's right
user975A3G@reddit
In this day 8GB is enough for a smartphone, not for a desktop
Unless you run very bare ones win 11 with just a single program running and no end point antivirus, which is not a good idea
Or if you run Linux... But that's not very common
Honest_Mushroom2648@reddit
Speaking from experience, sometimes you can:
Spend 1-2 hours diagnosing and repairing things. OR Reset/refresh the device (30 mins with Intune enrollment).
If the device has undergone several feature upgrades, it will naturally become slow over time. This is just Windows and it's clunky behavior.
I'm with your Tech. I am him.
InspectorGadget76@reddit
Have all requests for new hardware Peer Reviewed. He'll start looking like an idiot if he tells a user that new hardware is required, then someone comes along and quickly fixes software issues.
TBH, the users probably like him because he's an easy path to new toys.
wh0-0man@reddit
is this ragebait or are you just incompetent?
new toys are more than appropriate if you run 8gb shitboxes, 32 is default since last year if you ask me
daven1985@reddit
Don’t think 8gb is enough.
Aside from that. You need to train him, and have set procedures and policies documented that he can follow. If he doesn’t then you take steps.
softwaremaniac@reddit
He is right. If you're still willingly using 8 GB RAM in this day and age. We had people with 16GB complain and had to upgrade to 32. If we see an 8GB in the wild (large environment(, it's an immediate replacement, no questions asked.
LForbesIam@reddit
(Irony) Step 1 reboot Step 2 do GPUpdate/force Step 3 reimage Step 4 replace motherboard 😂
Note I have created full in house tutorials and training on troubleshooting and they don’t even watch them.
GrandOccultist@reddit
Our preference is to just replace a device (intune) it’s far less downtime for the user and easier than a tech taking 5,10,30,40 mins troubleshooting vs switching a laptop out
fdeyso@reddit
Then you have the same issue on a different device and the user had to go through the initial setup of everything the way they like it….
Familiar_One@reddit
OP is the problem
dannybau87@reddit
Not your problem, it's managements problem. You'll never be happy if you're doing your managers job for them. Mr replacement will probably get the promotion as he's made users like him by taking the easy way out that gets them a new laptop. You'll be kept in your job because you're competent but rub people the wrong way.
naasei@reddit
Just tell him?!
Knightshadow21@reddit
What OS are you running ??
My suggestion would host a meeting and get a list of tickets go through them and pick up some that are coming by frequently with the tech look for a fix and take him along the journey. Result would be hopefully that the tech will learn something.
I would also suggest make a play book for troubleshooting
Angelworks42@reddit
Where I work it’s not the techs who decide who gets a new laptop. I don’t think I’ve ever worked at a place where frontline people get to play with that much money.
Reda_E@reddit
8gb enough lol? In what year do you operate?
Much_Cardiologist645@reddit
I would replace those laptops too. 8gb is so little nowadays.
exterminuss@reddit
That is an HR issue,
on the other hand, if we are talking windows, and just a browser + one or two office applications the tec is right,
so many little stupid things that go wrong, that can be fixed by clearing cache, scanpst, reisntall etc.
But in my personal and probably more than slighty biased eyperience, tend to happen less often when Ram is enough and Drive ain't slow as fuck. Strangly slow ass CPUs don't seam to produce as many "hard errors" just "wait till it s done" ones
JustSomeGuyFromIT@reddit
The question is, does he do it to replace old hardware which is slow or does he just do it because it's easier?
Like how old are the devices he replaces and since how long are they in use?
persiusone@reddit
8gb is pretty low- but, one solution may be to require hand-on evaluation of the issue before replacing, and if replacement is warranted, the tech making that determination handles the deployment of the new device for the user. This avoids laziness by not passing the issue to another tech.
LegProfessional6462@reddit
I do honestly yearn for the days of 8Gb nay, 4Gb being enough... But we simply don't live in those times any more. Users might only have a small number of apps open, but so frequently one is Outlook, the other is Excel and the other is Edge or Chrome with about 15 running tabs containing every webapp and site from Teams, to ERP to some kind of streaming audio.
We do have an agreed cut off, whereby we put the black cap on for older machines, but this tends to look at processor generation first, RAM second. If the machine can legitimately run Win11 and it has issues (that are not obvious hardware or driver faults), then its first port of call is likely Autopilot - Fresh Start. It's then normally pretty apparent from a combination of analysing the spec and CPU / RAM performance in RMM that the user needs a new device or not.
Discuss those parameters with your tech and establish a standard operating procedure so every action is justified. Keep everyone happy.
ersentenza@reddit
8GB isn't "good enough" these days is barely enough for Windows to say hello. I guaranteed your tech is fed up with user constantly complaining their PCs can't do anything because of course they can't Windows is constantly stuck swapping 100% of the time. If you can't afford to replace all PCs at least buy more RAM.
gumbrilla@reddit
Honestly that tech sounds like a straight shooter with upper management written all over him.
If I rocked up to a machine with 8gb I'm just go about replacing it instead of wasting my time trying to diagnose some weird software thing where its likely memory.
Any performance issues I'm absolutely going to do that without even looking.
What you have is a nugget of gold. He's not wasting people's time, which is what everyone else is doing by providing kit at below recomended levels. Oh it will run but your still impacting productivity as soon as you start multitasking, or run anything heavy.
noocasrene@reddit
You would be surprised how much enterprise backend software installed, can make 8gb not enough on a Windows 10 or 11 laptop. Patching, security, app, email, and any other software installed are always in the background running using up memory. It only gets worse if users have multiple windows etc running and never reboot their computers.
Hebespunk@reddit
Sorry, i agree with your tech. If any Windows device has 8Gb of RAM and it comes through our office for any reason, it gets a RAM upgrade or it gets replaced for something with more RAM. 16Gb MINIMUM.
Exotic_Call_7427@reddit
Windows running overhead is 4GB on a freshly installed system. That leaves a really small amount of RAM for Chromium browser tabs and Teams running, let alone Office programs.
Your tech is demonstrating to you that he is not going to put band-aids when your asset lifecycle management is not in order. You should really reconsider your perpective on the situation.
Mental-Wrongdoer-263@reddit
The tricky part is user perception. Once someone tells them a replacement is needed, users tend to latch onto that idea. A structured workflow that logs issues and troubleshooting steps, maybe paired with something like Cato for real-time insights, could help push back against unnecessary hardware swaps more effectively.
stonecoldcoldstone@reddit
IT can't always just repair, upgrade and replace is part of the job, if a machine is older than 3-5 years it has to go
Enough_Cauliflower69@reddit
Maybe If you think 8GB is enough there is something more between you than you let us think. Maybe he is resentful or smt.
Dunmordre@reddit
Nice laptops are a very cheap way to give your incredibly expensive employers a massive moral boost. Even if you spent £5000 on It equipment it would still be a bargain, but you're grubbing around for pennies.
It really sounds like you're giving them utter crap and demoralising the hell out of them. You have one employee working against the system and trying to give them relief, but everyone's working against him and sabotaging that.
You should make him redundant so he can go work somewhere where he's appreciated and can thrive. The rest of the company is doomed to mediocrity.
dcsearle@reddit
Yeah I agree with comments and think your tech has a point, not only is 8gb too light for todays standards (especially for Windows), but the act of replacing with better kit and a clean build is a two birds with one stone approach that often works wonders. I take your point that its a hammer to crack a nut, so having the tech record the issue tickets properly and be able to report on it should give you more insights as to whether or not they really are overdoing it (like “mouse broken, replaced PC”)… and thats honestly what needs to happen if you are going to make this into a management issue because without measurable evidence it’s unreasonable to even raise this with them.
AntagonizedDane@reddit
We pay a hundred dollarydoos extra for 32GB RAM per laptop.
We upgrade them every five years (unless something breaks), keep some of the "old" ones, that isn't too banged up, as backups for surprise hires, and the rest is sold to refurb.
Gives us peace of mind.
PrincipleExciting457@reddit
With 8GB of memory being enough, I can only guess that your company just runs windows and stares at the screen all day?
SpadeGrenade@reddit
Serious question - is it an acceptable hardware refresh request? Like, if your users are running 9 year old laptops 'with only 8 GB of memory' (insanely low, btw) then getting new, standardized hardware is probably a good idea.
If they're somewhat current gen and can just have more memory installed, maybe go that route.
derpman86@reddit
I will join in with the others 8GB sadly is not enough thanks to the bloat of Windows 11 especially with more and more feature updates. I cringe so much when I see a "computer is slow" job as I know it is down to the now lack of Ram.
I miss the days when slapping an SSD in turned the computer into a rocket ship and it stopped people complaining for ages :D
webby-debby-404@reddit
Let that person go.
OOOHHHHBILLY@reddit
I'm surprised by your stance on the issue. I'd get ALL machines upgraded to 16GB yesterday, and give your tech all the tools and support he needs to do it. Is budget stopping you from having already done this?
djgizmo@reddit
lulz. wake up and smell the coffee.
OcotilloWells@reddit
Retrain him. Clearly the answer is to reinstall Acrobat Reader.
mrtux543@reddit
Gotta make sure that Google Ultron is kept up to date too.
zrad603@reddit
I'm not one to throw "new hardware" at the problem all the time. But a good enterprise environment should take the whole DevOps "servers are cattle, not pets" mantra and apply it to desktops as well.
A user should be able to set fire to their laptop, leave for lunch, and they should be back to work when they're done with lunch with a new laptop.
Now, I don't think we should be getting these users new laptops all the time. But you can recycle the computers.
If a computer was acting up, I'd look at the OS install date, if it was more than a year, swap the computer with another computer, take the computer back, nuke it from orbit, upgrade it, and it went back into the rotation.
It's not that the hardware was bad, and it's not like we couldn't fix the software issue, it's that if you get your infrastructure and system images to the right state, its way easier to essentially reset than try to troubleshoot a problem.
RootinTootinHootin@reddit
2 things that have both already been said. If one guy can just say we are going to replace it and it gets replaced then change how that goes. Maybe his boss should have to sign off on it. Give him a few calls where he has to take another look at the issue and say he was wrong and it won’t be being replaced and he will stop doing it out of embarrassment.
2nd thing is you should really try working on a 8gb laptop for a week or two. I had to a month or so ago and almost quit over it. At 8 gbs my Teams calls would come in at about 3-4 seconds later on my laptop than my phone. I had to police my browser tabs pretty regularly as well.
OBPing@reddit
I’d side with the tech on this one.
systonia_@reddit
Don't allow him to replace devices then? All replacements need approval from someone else.
Also: 8GB? Goddamn dude
itiscodeman@reddit
Stick
TFABAnon09@reddit
Sorry, but if one of my clients insist I used a laptop with 8GB of RAM, I would walk away from the contract and let the CTO/CFO know that their IT team are fucking morons.
I've got 3 laptops on my desk right now - 2 client devices, and my own business' laptop - and they are fitted out with 32GB, 32GB, and 64GB respectively. My MS-01 mini workstation (that I use moreso than the laptops for BYOD contracts and in-house projects) has 96GB of DDR5.
TFABAnon09@reddit
Oh and to add - let's do the calculus on your archaic idea of troubleshooting to the nth degree.
User comes to you with a slow laptop. Let's say the helpdesk monkey is on $75k, and the user is on $100k - that's $36 and $48 per hour, respectively. For every hour spent working on troubleshooting the problem costs the business at least $84.
That's without considered downstream impacts - like, what if the user is now a blocker for someone else's work, also - now the tech is unable to work on something more productive. Opportunity costs can easily snowball.
The quickest solution is to swap the laptop out for something fit-for-purpose, get the user up and running asap, add the laptop to the "to-fix" bin. Then, when things are quiet, you can get one of the techs to shove extra sticks of RAM into the machines before re-imaging them and mark them as ready-to-deploy.
baw3000@reddit
At what age does your org replace laptops? Is there a replacement schedule policy? If not, then why not?
Looking at this through sysadmin goggles, I’m not wasting my time troubleshooting old iron either. I’m agreeing with the user and telling them “yeah, this thing sucks” and handing them a new one.
Quietech@reddit
Some places from it into the techs to go no longer than X minutes in troubleshooting and to swap devices past that. Are they coming from that kind of environment? What have you done already to curtail the behavior? You might have to do a little teaching.
KindlyGetMeGiftCards@reddit
Probably a training issue, ie they don't know better.
Get a broken machine on the bench, ie out of production and tell them the issue and ask them to tell you, verbally, what they will do to diagnose the issue, ask them why that step, don't interject or guide them. Let them go through the issue out loud step by step before touching the computer.
The idea is to slow them down and get them to start to think critically about the steps, do this a couple of times before you guide them on your way of thinking/diagnosing, let them come to their own methodology as they will retain it rather than your method.
This is slow, but you are training up someone for life, not telling the answer on each question, you are training them to be as good as you, or your replacement, which is a good thing, it means you can step up and know that below you is someone competent
vogelke@reddit
This should have been done when they started, while still in their probationary period. It's a management problem in that someone got careless and didn't bother checking if the person actually had any troubleshooting skills.
0verstim@reddit
This is r/sysadmin not r/ServiceDeskManager... its a management issue like others have said. Maybe book mark some of these tickets so you have evidence when they ask for you to back up your assertions
CleverMonkeyKnowHow@reddit
This is r/sysadmin, but OP isn't very forthcoming with details.
"8 GB is enough".
Okay. Maybe. I'd need to know your workload to sign off on that. If all they're doing is using the machine to connect to OP's VDI of choice, be that using Citrix Workspace, AVD, etc., maybe that's true.
If these machines don't connect to virtual desktops, I'd really like to see performance graphs of end user usage throughout the day. Maybe he's telling the truth. I know that by the time you fire up a browser with 5-10 tabs, Outlook, and any other MS Office product, and you've got your endpoint security solution, whatever that might be, you're at 8 GB usage for sure, and probably over it.
We need more info, u/neochaser5. Then I can tell you if it's a technician problem or a you problem.
PandaBonium@reddit
I'm sure r/shittysysadmin would welcome op with open arms
waxwayne@reddit
At my company if the fix takes longer 90 minutes you re-image. If there are any hardware issues it’s a swap and re-image. It makes it hard to develop troubleshooting skills but it’s the fastest for the customer.
theomegachrist@reddit
8GB of RAM? If it's Windows, do you know his username so I can read the post asking what you should do about the tech that keeps saying 8GB is fine when I replace laptops?
Evan_Stuckey@reddit
Regarding 8GB ram, with windows 10 it may have worked but windows 11 it simply doesn’t, make it 16GB. (Comparison done on VDI so same otherwise HW just extra ram makes a huge huge difference to how the system runs)
LitzLizzieee@reddit
Why waste time tinkering with machines beyond the basics? I would say it's not worth it from a financial POV alone when you factor in techs time + user's time not being able to work... often it's quicker to just remote wipe/replace and then get the user back up and running.
treat your endpoints like cattle, not pets.
Brufar_308@reddit
Why does a tech have the ability to recommend a replacement pc or laptop without first escalating an issue ?
I just upgraded hardware in about 40 devices during our win 11 rollout, to get them to run win 11 better than they were running win 10. The cost to upgrade them all was equivalent to the purchase of 1 or 2 new devices. Was an easy sell to the controller to stretch our budget and make the employees happy at the same time. Those devices will be first in line for the next round of hardware refresh, but for now they perform about as well as the newer systems.
Secret_Account07@reddit
Huh?
I worked help desk for almost 10 years. Replaced devices all the time. Who would they escalate to? They are help desk after all
papa_grease@reddit
Lol don't let him do it
mbkitmgr@reddit
A meeting. As a manager I'd be asking why this is his preferred solution, then discuss why its not how you want the situation. if he isnt listening, put him on notice.
I am surprised 8GB is adequate, 16GB has been min spec for my clients since around 2020, so he may have a good reason - facts will clear it up
CleverMonkeyKnowHow@reddit
It's not adequate. OP just thinks it is. We don't deploy any machine to an end-user with less than 32 GB of RAM and these are mostly accountants running Excel, Outlook, CCH programs, and a browser with an extension or two, and even then I've seen some of those uses creep up to the 28-30 GB mark.
I fully expect in five (5) years, 64 GB of RAM will be the recommendation.
__bonsai__@reddit
Promote them. Sounds like they're the only one in the org that can you get caught up
CaptainDarkstar42@reddit
This sounds like a management issue where his managers need to explain to him proper troubleshooting procedures and what machines actually need to be replaced. Although, I am curious, 8GB really isn't a lot these days as everyone has already pointed out. What kind of programs are you guys running on these endpoints that they aren't eating up that RAM? As a tech, I constantly have a lot of tabs open and I need 32 GB. Furthermore, can you upgrade the RAM in these laptops instead? I'm thinking if your laptops only have 8GB soldered in and nothing else, they are probably getting old enough to the point that they need to be replaced anyway.
noblejeter@reddit
What software issues are occurring? There has been times I have just replaced devices for users with certain weird issues with software/hardware because troubleshooting isn’t worth the hassle and will take too long when the user just needs the ability to work.
Sufficient_Language7@reddit
This company is losing more money due to slow machines then they would cost just replace the machines. Plus how many of these 8GB laptops can't do Windows 11, Windows 10 support is over.
ShowMeYourT_Ds@reddit
8 GB of RAM? Even cheaper Dell machine mostly stock 16 these days.
How do you know it’s software related? If that’s the case then it’s a training issue. KB the software issue to be looked at, if it’s frequent enough RCA it.
If it’s software related and can’t be replaced due to constraints, reimage it.
AppalachianGeek@reddit
When do you plan to upgrade from WinXP? Will the new computers have DVD drive AND a 3.5?
RandomGen-Xer@reddit
8GB RAM hasn't been adequate for a number of years now, for anyone who actually has to 'do' anything of consequence. If they're any sort of admin or engineer, 32GB is more like it. 16GB may 'work' but be annoying.
But yeah, like others have said, take away that option. He doesn't get to make that call any more. Or perhaps he could be gently encouraged to seek employment elsewhere if that's not an acceptable answer for him.
attathomeguy@reddit
All windows machines should be at least 32GB because of how much ram everything consumes. All Apple laptops now come with 16GB which is usually more than enough. My dev's get 48GB machines but that's it
discgman@reddit
Remind those in charge that 8gb is below standards and no amount of software troubleshooting is gonna fix that. An I5 processor equivalent is also below standards these days.
UCFknight2016@reddit
16gb is the minimum these days. 32gb is better though
nshire@reddit
Do the laptops have soldered memory? It's so much cheaper to throw in another stick than replace the whole computer...
Catchy_Username1@reddit
16GB should be the standard. If they're running 8GB, you'll need to replace the workstation sooner or later anyways. If it's a budgeting issue, just mention it won't have to be touched for a few years after 🤷♂️
jaredthegeek@reddit
If I am not their manager then I don’t care. Is it your responsibility? If not then who cares, do you job and let their manager deal with it.
ShokuV@reddit
lol your tech sounds like he understands your environment better than you do, 8 GB is criminally low.
MediocreAd8440@reddit
What stripped down version of Linux are you running with that amount of memory? Might as well start torturing your users if these are windows based machines.....
MightBeDownstairs@reddit
I support a small organize and I deploy 32-64, dudes a blessing in disguise and it is typically easier to replace a device than troubleshoot sometimes
eclipse75@reddit
also depends on how much troubleshooting. if replacing the laptop will result in less downtime for the user, I'm in favor of a swap.
Quigleythegreat@reddit
We do often find it is faster to swap a user to another laptop if the issue is funky enough. I'd rather waste 30 minutes of their time then several sessions of uhhhhh, I don't know....
Obviously we do try and fix issues, but sometimes it's too much of a time sink.
We wipe, reimage, and reuse, unless there is actually a hardware issue that needs addressing.
8GB is not enough IMO. Heck, we've been going 32gb as standard now and upgrading machines that have 16. Browsers are such memory hogs.
Have Teams, Outlook, some files, and a few tabs open, it doesn't take much these days.
schizrade@reddit
8gb… hot damn those machines must drag… or are all still running windows 7 lol.
lurkerfox@reddit
Im pretty curious what kind of software issues are we talking about.
8GB is a tiny amount these days he might be onto something lol
NoobToobinStinkMitt@reddit
He's probably doing you a favor. Your 8 GB machines probably get more "slow" complaints.
lilhotdog@reddit
16gb is barely enough with Teams and a few browser tabs open. We’ve defaulted to 32gb for new devices.
Rouxls__Kaard@reddit
8GB ain’t enough. Unless it’s a VM that does like 1 thing.
Lower_Fan@reddit
Management issue.
But this place seems big enough to have siloed tech team but not enough money for 16gb of ram? I kinda agree with the tech lmao as long as there are actually better laptops to replace the old one and I could get away with it.
BadSausageFactory@reddit
Make them explain to the end user that they did not properly troubleshoot the issue and were incorrect to request a new machine, which is not an option in any case.
tigglysticks@reddit
Sounds like a policy owner or HR issue.
t3jan0@reddit
Whose budget do the laptop costs come from ?