Memory Upgrade

thawk

thawk

Joined
Oct 28, 2006
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I have a 2 year old Dell. I just bumped the memory from 1GB to 2GB. The forum experience just improved about 2 to 4 times in those JPG intensive threads. Great investment. About $35.00 for 2 x 512GB SIMMS.
 
Yep the 2 is much faster, but I noticed the best change I made was to a cable modem and an a N Standard wireless router, I get 300mps on my laptop, even faster than the hard wired dell desktop wife uses that is 110mps. N standard is great.
Jim
 
I already have a good cable modem and high speed Internet. I knew my machine was slowing down a little with more and more resources needed for more graphics, higher resolutions, and the general hoggish nature of Windows.

Upping the memory really was needed. Next computer in a couple years will likely need 4GB to keep up. I've always contended that more memory serves a lot more benefits than a faster processor for most computer stuff, except gaming, then you need both, plus a rip snorting video card (I'm not a gamer).
 
Is there an easy way to tell exactly what memory your computer will take (I know I can't just go buy any two x 1GB)? I have 1.5GB but I can feel the need for more.
 
Is there an easy way to tell exactly what memory your computer will take (I know I can't just go buy any two x 1GB)?
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Should be easy to find out the max your computer can hold. If you built your own, look up the specs for that motherboard, or it'll say in the motherboard's manual.

If it's a storebought machine, several websites have easy-to-use memory-finding tools. A good one can be found at the Crucial website.
 
I will second that, it downloads a program on your computer, scans it and reports back, it will tell you how many slots you have and how much memory can be loaded or replaced with higher speed chips and what ones to buy. They have never failed me on upgrading over 12 computers at office and home. Great place to deal with and usually very reasonable in price. Here is a link to them. http://www.crucial.com/
 
zenheretic said:
Is there an easy way to tell exactly what memory your computer will take (I know I can't just go buy any two x 1GB)? I have 1.5GB but I can feel the need for more.
Click to expand...

One more thing Zen, I have found it is always best to match your chips, it may mean tossing the old, but matched memory chips have always performed better for me. I usually take out my old and put them on ebay. Usually sells and helps out with the cost of your upgraded memory.
Jim
 
My system was built by a local guy I lost touch with for a while. I went to Crucial and filled out the form on the website, told them what motherboard I had (I think that was all they needed to know, don't remember anything else). I got an email the next day telling me what they had that would be compatible, ordered it, it arrived a few days later and I plugged it in. :thumbup:
 
thawk said:
Upping the memory really was needed. Next computer in a couple years will likely need 4GB to keep up. I've always contended that more memory serves a lot more benefits than a faster processor for most computer stuff, except gaming, then you need both, plus a rip snorting video card (I'm not a gamer).
Click to expand...

DDR3 is the next standard and you'll want to fill 3 slots with ram,not just two. Three RAM slots will probably be the most common config. So 3 and 6 GB will be the sweet spots. Some boards are sharing the memory channel on slots 3 and 4 so you'll populate slot 3 and 4 with half the ram each for that channel. so 1, 1, 512, 512 or 2, 2, 1, 1.

Phil
 
zenheretic said:
Is there an easy way to tell exactly what memory your computer will take (I know I can't just go buy any two x 1GB)? I have 1.5GB but I can feel the need for more.
Click to expand...

James Todd said:
One more thing Zen, I have found it is always best to match your chips, it may mean tossing the old, but matched memory chips have always performed better for me.
Click to expand...

I think this may only be important for Dual-Channel Architecture (link to Wikipedia), and not necessary for single channel.

The fact that zenheritic has 1.5Gb currently in his machine - probably means he does not have a matched pair - and it seems to work.

For normal usage on XP 512Mb-1Gb is enough for most people - power users or Gamers can use 2Gb (Vista needs 1Gb more) -
see this TechBlog: How much memory do you need? EDIT to ADD - also How Much Memory? Crucial.com

But the best way to tell is is by one's own actual (worst case) usage.

The way to tell if one really needs more RAM is to see when the PC is fully loaded - with as many applications/tasks as one would possibly want to use at the same time - and see if the PC swaps out to disk PageFile/virtual memory.

An easy way to see this (other than just listening and watching the disk access light) is to invoke Task Manager (the dreaded Control-ALT-Delete), and click on the Performance Tab - note the Physical Memory (K) - Total - now after loading up and using the maximum tasks/applications - look at Commit Charge (K) - Peak. (or just look at the Peak Commit Charge at the end of each day for a few days - and note the highest figure)

If this Peak figure exceeds the Total Physical Memory then some RAM had to be swapped out to Disk PageFile/Virtual memory.

Adding RAM to just exceed that Peak Commit Charge is probably Optimum.

If even when the PC is fully loaded and the Peak Commit Charge is still below the Total Physical Memory - then one does not really need more RAM........

Good page on RAM and Pagefile Optimization.

BTW - looking at this Peak Commit Charge (for fully loaded PC) is also a good way to optimize one's virtual memory/PageFile size according to this page - Virtual-Memory-Tweak-2000-XP -
take that figure and add 128Mb and use that for both the initial and max size for Virtual Memory.

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Cool, thanks for all the input. I'm a geek gamer but am trying to hold off a new machine as long as possible but can feel the ram crunch.

The 1.5 gig came as the stock offering at the time. It is a HP (I usually avoid big name brands as you pay more for name than function, but am quite happy with the results this time.)
 
65535 said:
I have 768megs or RAM, am I really missing out that much?
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If you have to ask then probably not. If you have half your hair pulled out in frustration due to waiting for a function to process, then yes. :)

Graphics intensive games, video editing, using lots of programs at once, all need more ram than that these days.
 
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