PC Memory silly noob question
My PC hasn't been upgraded in ages... Well, three years to be exact. Seeing as I'm too much of a skinflint to buy a new system, I thought I'd upgrade the most critical bit and then do the rest later.

So far as I know, it's got a single DIMM with half a gig of 400mhz memory sitting in it. "No problemo!" said I and immediately logged on to Dabs.com to check out how much replacement RAM costs.

However I'm somewhat bewildered by the choices on offer. What does "registered" mean? What happens if I chuck the old DIMM away and put in a 1.5 Gig 800mhz DIMM? Why is there a difference of £111 between a 1.5 Gig DIMM (at £22) and a 4 Gig DIMM (at £133)? Will slotting in a 800mhz DIMM fuck up my PC or will it simply work at whatever lower rated speed my motherboard can handle?

Answers in crayon please.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Mon 27 Oct 2008, 17:21, 14 replies, latest was 16 years ago)

I likes crayons
If you go to the Crucial Memory website (www.crucial.com), then there is a system search download that you can download and run, which will show you all the compatible upgrades you can buy. And there's a question and answer section for each of the different types too.
(PenguinOfDeath is Scottish, and most likely angry, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 17:33, Reply)

Memory speed
Memory can only run at the rated speed of your front side bus. You can buy 800mhz and whack it in, but if the bus can only run at 333, then that's the performance you'll get.

If you know what your motherboard is, I can have a looksie for you and give you some ideas.

The price difference these days is because nobody makes the RAM for three year old systems (DDR memory, most likely) anymore. The rarer the stock, the higher the price.
( Kroney, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 17:45, Reply)

Thanks guys
That's brilliant... Actually better news than I thought.

Cheers!
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Mon 27 Oct 2008, 18:20, Reply)

RAM will clock down to meet the motherboard's buss speed
Make sure you get the right sort of RAM though, as even though they're all called DDR2 SDRAM DIMMs they're not compatible between, say, an Athlon 64, a Pentium 4 and a Core 2 Duo.

Best plan is, if you've got a pre built computer, look it up on the support section of the relevant manufacturer's website, and if you built it yourself, find the motherboard manual on the internet.
(Son of Sam-i-am We're all as mad as hatters here, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 19:15, Reply)

Incidentally
there's no point having 4 gig of RAM in a three year old system. It won't be able to run anything that you'd need that much memory for.

Just in case you were serious.
( Kroney, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 19:31, Reply)

Kroney
I have 4GB of RAM in a 3.5 year old system, and need every bit of it (well, the 3.35GB I get due to the address space limitations).

It was built originally with 4GB as a top of the range powerhouse, getting a bit old now but still usable...

I agree PJM probably doesn't need it if he's spent 3 years on 512MB (fwiw I'd consider 1GB to be bare minimum for running Windows XP), but the amount of RAM needed isn't based on the age of the system!
(Son of Sam-i-am We're all as mad as hatters here, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 20:52, Reply)

Another point
'Upgrade the most critical bit and leave the rest til later'

Think about how much you're spending on RAM to upgrade what's essentially an obsolete computer, when you could get a new one for £2-300 (assuming you already have monitor, keyboard and mouse)

The RAM money may be better put aside to start a new PC fund.

If you let us know the spec of the machine then I'm sure us resident geeks can give it the once over and suggest the best course of action..
(Son of Sam-i-am We're all as mad as hatters here, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 21:11, Reply)

Miasma
Sure, if you're running multiple apps at the same time or running graphics packages. For your average user, there's no way they'd need that much RAM.

I don't agree on the XP thing, either. It runs perfectly smoothly on 256mb. Again, it depends on what you use it for. Now Vista, I wouldn't recommend running that on anything less than a Kray.
( Kroney, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 22:01, Reply)

Audio editing, actually
I was just taking issue with your statement that a 3 year old computer couldn't run a program that uses that much RAM - it certainly can!

Agreed on Vista - my Vista test bed machine at work (we're on XP still, and will be as long as I have any say in it) is pretty pimping, and it's not what you'd call fast.

I'd love to see how you get XP running smoothly on 256 - I know it says it on the box but even set to 'adjust for best performance', Classic mode etc your average user's still got a bunch of stuff in the system tray (sorry, notification area!), AV etc, even MS Office is pretty bloated these days, and people rarely only run one or two apps at a time. It will run on 256 but I don't find it a fun experience. Even 512 is usually pretty laggy, hence why I said a gig. At work we have a mix of late P4s (800FSB ones) and some newer C2D, all the users are doing is Office, our bespoke database software and a bit of web surfing and we've got them all on 2GB. Makes it a lot smoother when they decide to open 28 spreadsheets, 5 Word docs and all their emails at the same time...
(Son of Sam-i-am We're all as mad as hatters here, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 22:15, Reply)

incidentally
I have a knackered 3 year-old DIMM you can have for free. It's the one that snapped off my motherboard after my DVD drive smashed into it during my PC's traumatic journey from the UK to Japan.

The moving company must have kicked it out of the plane without a parachute. I have never seen so much damage to a PC before.

Total damage? The case was severely buckled and the hard disk caddy was deformed (I unfucked it with a hammer). The motherboard had lost several capacitors (I re-soldered the little twats), I lost half a gig of RAM, three of my four hard disks, the VGA card and three years of carefully cultivated dust.

But like a phoenix from the flames, it lives again. I feel like I've resuscitated a child.
( chart cat has an itch, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 5:59, Reply)

Vista
I've got Vista on a machine with two 64 bit Athlons and 2 gig of ram and it runs as quickly and smoothly as I could hope for.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 8:42, Reply)

I've got it (32 bit version) on a 2.4 Core 2 Duo
with 4GB RAM, and it's snail paced compared to an identical computer sat next to it running XP. Takes about four times as long to boot up. Don't even have the Aero shite on as I haven't got a fancy graphics card. I suppose the 64 bit version's probably a fair bit better, do those Athlons work well at 64 bit then? I've only ever run 32 bit OS on them and never rated them compared to Pentiums.
(Son of Sam-i-am We're all as mad as hatters here, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 9:31, Reply)

Cheers again guys
The whole avenue of upgrades, processors and motherboards is the stuff of nightmares. Finances are extremely tight at the moment, so splashing out on HAL9000 isn't an option.

I could get a gig of RAM for about twenty sniffs, which would certainly help matters. I could perhaps think about getting a new mobo/CPU/memory at a later date.

BTW, I've found a great program which is brilliant for hogging loads of system resources and slowing everything down to a snail's pace.

It's called "Norton".
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Tue 28 Oct 2008, 10:16, Reply)

Yeah, Norton is great for hogging stuff
Kaspersky FTW.

If you're sure that gig of RAM is the right sort then that's a good price to fit something that's three years old. I (well, work) just paid £17.99 + VAT per 1GB stick to upgrade my brand spanking work machine, and obsolete RAM is usually a lot more expensive.
(Son of Sam-i-am We're all as mad as hatters here, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 10:29, Reply)