Upgrading Ram

You're running a Celeron 1.4GHz? My suggestion is to get a whole new computer.

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Original post by coldacid You're running a Celeron 1.4GHz? My suggestion is to get a whole new computer.

If you read my post, you would have seen that I do not have the assets to buy a new computer soon at all- I was wondering if investing $120 would help, though.

Well, upgrading the computer would be a nice move for all of us, wouldn't it! [grin]

But yeah, it sounds like some additional RAM could help you out quite a bit. I don't know if 512 is enough, but it would certainly help when you try to open two notepad files at one time [lol].

Um, I hate to ask, but how does a person know what kind of RAM they need? For example, me. I need RAM, but I don't know what kind, or how to figure it out.

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simultaneously running the internets

how many internets do you run? & on a more serious note i'd say yes doubling the ram will most definately have a huge impact (cept maybe for gaming if your vidcard is the bottleneck but your processor is way enought for all the things you listed & 256mb is really low for win xp wich already uses a good chunk of that by itself)

also pc 100ram is more expensive because few people need it (& honestly those who do are all in your case & would rather pay 20more than have to buy a whole new comp) so the current stocks can be liquidated at that price easily & i assume it's not produced anymore so the supply's shrinking

[Edited by - ranakor on January 30, 2006 6:14:14 PM]

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Um, I hate to ask, but how does a person know what kind of RAM they need? For example, me. I need RAM, but I don't know what kind, or how to figure it out.

You could try using msinfo32.exe, but I don't think that that will tell you what kind of RAM you have. Most BIOS's will tell you your RAM's speed and its timings however.

I'd recommend just buying unbuffered, PC3200 RAM. (Unless you're using DDR2)

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Original post by Avatar God Um, I hate to ask, but how does a person know what kind of RAM they need? For example, me. I need RAM, but I don't know what kind, or how to figure it out.

you know what kind of ram you need based on your motherboard & more specificially wich kind of ram that can go in your motherboard would be best based on your processor in some case.

it's pretty easy there's really only 4 kind of rams
1)dram: (the old pc 100/133) wether you want 100 or 133 depends on your pci bus speed you're safer getting 133 if you don't know wich you need since you can just have it be used at pc 100 if it fails at 133

2)rdram: nearly no one uses this & it isn't in any recent computers it was to fight vs ddr & it lost the only case where you may have rdram is if you have an intel computer from that era (what was it 3 years ago ish?) & in this case at the price they're at (if you can even find some) you may actually be better off upgrading the mobo/processor & getting DDR

3)DDRam (double data rate ram) the one in most comps today if you have anything not overly old odds are it's using that it comes in diferent speed pc 2700 3200 & highter (2700 only makes sence for 333mhz bus amd 3200 for everything else including more recent amd highter only for overclocking)

4)ddr-2 highter speed but highter latency ram it will replace ddr (already does in the most recent intel systems) & while it'll be better than ddr later on for now most people think it's just getting as good/barely better with the current achievable timing

as for knowing exactly what type of ram you need if you know nothing about your motherboard get this sisoft sandra then launch it & click on motherboard information & then scroll down to memory banks it'll tell you what type of ram you have

also note that no name ram is usually to be avoided & that even the one that works may not work on your mobo if it's picky

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Original post by ranakor it's pretty easy there's really only 4 kind of rams

Nah, there are countless.
FOr example, you missed EDO-ram. :)
But yeah, on modern computers, it's DDR (or if it's an Intel from the last year or two, DDR2). On older Intel systems, it's RDRAM, and on really ancient stuff, it's just plain SDRAM.

Anyway, yeah, going from 256 to 512mb will definitely make a noticeable difference. 512 is where WinXP actually starts running smoothly. :)

And yeah, plain old PC100 is expensive because it isn't being made any more.

ok post edit for clarity : there is only 4 kind of rams you can reasonably expect to find in a home computer of type PC that is running either a intel or amd chip clocked highter than 100mhz

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Original post by ender7771 If you read my post, you would have seen that I do not have the assets to buy a new computer soon at all- I was wondering if investing $120 would help, though.

I completely disagree. You can build a extreme budget computer for about 300$ expecially since you already have a copy of Windows XP.

I quickly threw this together from newegg:
AMD Semptron 2600+ w/ Biostar TForce 6100 Motherboard - 124.25$
512 MB Corsair ValueSelect DDR400 - 39.00$
Antec Lifestyle SonataII - 99.00$ (Before 20$ Rebate)
Shiping - 32.78$
Total - 296.02$

That should be all you need if you reuse your Optical Drives, Harddisks, and Floppy Drive. This machine may not be able to run the newest game, but it will beat the socks off of your 1.4 Celeron with 512 MB of Memory much less 256 MB. The trade off is that you may not be able to order it as soon since it costs more.

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See Above Antec Lifestyle SonataII - 99.00$ (Before 20$ Rebate)

If your case does not need to be replaced, I would suggest replaceing this item with:
Antec SmartPower 2.0 400 watt - 54.99
This change adjusts your total with shiping to 239.02

So you could actually be halfway there. Perhaps you should investagate before you spend 60.00$ on a 256 MB sitck of SDRAM 100.

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Original post by Spoonbender Anyway, yeah, going from 256 to 512mb will definitely make a noticeable difference. 512 is where WinXP actually starts running smoothly. :)

you would be surprised what you can do witha little tweaking. i once had a 300mhz k-6 (the original) amd cpu and 32 mb of ram.... running win xp.
it actually ran pretty smooth, i had to msconfig a lot of services and random prcoesses along with all startup items removed, most visual enhancements off, page file tweaked... etc
its highly possible, so i'm sure he could get win xp running quite fast with 256mb of ram. i say your biggest problem is your cpu, a 1.4ghz celeron.... the celeron d's have improved upon the celeron name but the old ones are just crap especially since i belive those celerons (the 1.4ghz line) was based off of the already crappy original p4 architecture (the original p4's weren't too good but of course of they imporved after a while :). but you probably can't afford a new cpu so i guess going to 512mb is good enough for now.
and ranakor, you missed a lot, there are a ton of different ram types like; sram, dram, fpm dram, simm ram, edo ram, ddr sd ram, rd ram...etc

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Original post by Jarrod1937 and ranakor, you missed a lot, there are a ton of different ram types like; sram, dram, fpm dram, simm ram, edo ram, ddr sd ram, rd ram...etc

i actually listed em all? sram dram fpm & edo were all replaced by dram before >100mhz chips & i did list ddr & rdram (lowercasing & adding space doesn't make something different p) as for simm it's just a type of slot & not a type of ram (well if you consider this a type then there are only 2 types dimm or simm but either way you can't count simm & edo for example) so i'm fairly sure i listed at least everything used in intel or amd based pc since pentium 2 athlon (i may have been wrong about >100mhz since i don't know what the pentium 1 mmx used)