Chosen Solution
I am not receiving the performance that I had expected. Videos and games look like they are sputtering during play. I cannot open more than a few tabs before the Chromebook comes to a crawl.
mibolsa, SWAP is not quite the same thing as RAM although they do essentially the same thing from a higher level looking down, but swap is far slower and implemented with a storage device such as a hard drive or a solid state drive instead of memory. So this will help in some situations where the 2gb in my Chromebook is just not enough but not as quick as a physical ram module which is what was asked in this question. Not trying to respond rudely just wanted to make the distinction for any future readers. Your answer was helpful just not 100% the correct answer for this problem, but is a solution. However swap on an ssd is ill advised due to r/w count. So I would not do this.
Hello Christopher, and welcome to iFixit. I see this is your first question. Sadly the Acer C720 does not allow for you to upgrade your memory exclusively; however, you are able to upgrade the memory to a maximum of 4 GB by replacing the motherboard itself to a model with 4 GB. Follow the guide on the Acer C720 device page for replacing the motherboard.
Hope this is not a too late answer. To activate SWAP, you will need to open terminal (Ctrl + Alt + t). In terminal, type the following command: swap enable 2000 This will create a 2GB SWAP partition on your Chromebook’s SSD, adjusting the number will change the SWAP size. The Chrome team recommends 2GB. A restart is required to activate your newly created SWAP partition. It is regarding as an experimental feature, and is not recommended for daily use. To disable the SWAP partition type the following command in terminal and restart: swap disable Hopefully this feature will prevent your Chrome tabs from crashing and you should be able to use more tabs. A handy feature until we get Chromebooks with more RAM.
The memory usage is proportional to the number of pixels on the screen because the laptop stores bitmaps for many of the background windows. Therefore, make sure your laptop is set to 1366x768 or 1024x576 to minimize RAM usage (hit crtl-shift-+ and crtl-shift-minus to change the resolution of the display). Also, remove as many browser extensions as possible to maximize cpu performance.
Upgrading ACER-c720 Chromebook on-board system memory! If your machine has only 2GB of system memory on-board, you can have an engineer flow the empty spaces with more memory allowing the system to reach the maximum of 4GB, However, this can be achieved by you if you have electronic skills. I purchased a dead mother board from eBay, found that the video card had failed, so I replaced the SMD component with a 2nd hand part from another Motherboard using a hot air gun, and it worked fine, the same applies to adding memory . Although, these components are not necessarily replaceable. This is just a myth, in order for the customer to buy a new Chromebook. The whole re-work procedure should take no-longer than 5-minutes to complete. See (you-tube) videos on replacing 2nd-hand SMD components! ONE NOTE to point out is, if you do change or upgrade the Motherboard, you may have to re-install the Operating System from an SD-card back to the SSD. You could also upgrade the SSD to 32, 64 or 128GB giving you ample space to swap the memory to the SSD, leaving the on-board memory for the running CPU tasks…
How do I put a Windows Microsoft ram into a acer Chromebook c720 and also how would I replace the motherboard with the Windows Microsoft ram into Acer Chromebook c720
@John van Dongen’s answer: Although removing SMDs can be relatively simple, resoldering connections for a replacement SMD is very difficult. All of the connections do need to be resoldered. This is not a “trick”, hardly any customers want to take the machine totally apart and do their own soldering, which is risky in the best circumstances. “Although, these components are not necessarily replaceable. This is just a myth, in order for the customer to buy a new Chromebook.” HUH?!?! It’s true the components are not necessarily replaceable. One of the obvious reasons not to desolder. How is that a myth? Does “myth” apply to something else? Does the writer understand what the English word means? “The whole re-work procedure should take no-longer than 5-minutes to complete” HECK NO! It should take less than five minutes to desolder then decide to throw it out, because you’ve broke it beyond reasonable repair. and what’s with all the dashes? Who puts a dash in “you-tube”. Somebody whose more familiar with Kanji or Cyrillic typefaces rather than English? Who is this “van Dongen?” Also, in these old “netbooks”, everything is on the motherboard, it’s tightly integrated. There’s no way to upgrade the motherboard, as no other motherboard will fit. It’s sort of ridiculous to suggest it. I’ve never heard it to be a reasonable suggestion for any laptop. You can salvage and sell the screen for other people’s blown screens, but the C720 has a lousy, outdated screen, it’s not in much demand.
