recommendations for extra RAM in my PC?
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i have a Compaq PC at home with 512meg of RAM in it. i am finding myself using VMWare quite a lot, and it tells me that i am running out of memory most times i use it :| something tells me i need more RAM :) according to Belarc Advisor my motherboard is an ASUSTeK A7N8X-LA Rev 1.xx Compaq seem to have done something "helpful", which means i have a slightly different version of this motherboard than the info i am finding online suggests. specifically there are only two RAM slots, one of which is available. Belarc and the manuals agree that the motherboard has a bus speed of 166mhz, which leaves me looking at 333mhz RAM. any recommendations on where to get good quality 1 gig RAM chips, and what make of RAM to go for? i am in England, so an English based company would be nice. also is putting a new 1 gig chip in with the current 512meg chip a good idea, or should i consider 2 1 gig chips? price will have something to do with this. i tend to run a lot of programs at once, so more RAM rather than less is probably a good thing. zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
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i have a Compaq PC at home with 512meg of RAM in it. i am finding myself using VMWare quite a lot, and it tells me that i am running out of memory most times i use it :| something tells me i need more RAM :) according to Belarc Advisor my motherboard is an ASUSTeK A7N8X-LA Rev 1.xx Compaq seem to have done something "helpful", which means i have a slightly different version of this motherboard than the info i am finding online suggests. specifically there are only two RAM slots, one of which is available. Belarc and the manuals agree that the motherboard has a bus speed of 166mhz, which leaves me looking at 333mhz RAM. any recommendations on where to get good quality 1 gig RAM chips, and what make of RAM to go for? i am in England, so an English based company would be nice. also is putting a new 1 gig chip in with the current 512meg chip a good idea, or should i consider 2 1 gig chips? price will have something to do with this. i tend to run a lot of programs at once, so more RAM rather than less is probably a good thing. zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
feline_dracoform wrote: also is putting a new 1 gig chip in with the current 512meg chip a good idea, or should i consider 2 1 gig chips? What's the maximum memory your mobo supports? Most 166Mhz bus mobos I know only supported up to 768~1024 MB RAM, which was a huge number then. I see dead pixels Yes, even I am blogging now!
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i have a Compaq PC at home with 512meg of RAM in it. i am finding myself using VMWare quite a lot, and it tells me that i am running out of memory most times i use it :| something tells me i need more RAM :) according to Belarc Advisor my motherboard is an ASUSTeK A7N8X-LA Rev 1.xx Compaq seem to have done something "helpful", which means i have a slightly different version of this motherboard than the info i am finding online suggests. specifically there are only two RAM slots, one of which is available. Belarc and the manuals agree that the motherboard has a bus speed of 166mhz, which leaves me looking at 333mhz RAM. any recommendations on where to get good quality 1 gig RAM chips, and what make of RAM to go for? i am in England, so an English based company would be nice. also is putting a new 1 gig chip in with the current 512meg chip a good idea, or should i consider 2 1 gig chips? price will have something to do with this. i tend to run a lot of programs at once, so more RAM rather than less is probably a good thing. zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
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feline_dracoform wrote: also is putting a new 1 gig chip in with the current 512meg chip a good idea, or should i consider 2 1 gig chips? What's the maximum memory your mobo supports? Most 166Mhz bus mobos I know only supported up to 768~1024 MB RAM, which was a huge number then. I see dead pixels Yes, even I am blogging now!
as far as i can tell 3 gig, but this figure seems to assume that i have three slots on the motherboard, which isn't totally helpful given i only have two :confused: [edit] inspired by the helpful link from Stuart i have just done the blindingly obvious and asked google the maximum RAM the machine will support. apparently it is 1gig, which makes sense but does not seem to tally with the motherboard info i have. still, this saves me some money.
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*ah* thank you for the link, they have a most interesting "what is my machine" page. mine isn't in the list, but inspired by this i have found a website describing it. apparently the maximum ram i can have is 1gig. compaq seem to have done something strange to the motherboard *sigh* zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
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*ah* thank you for the link, they have a most interesting "what is my machine" page. mine isn't in the list, but inspired by this i have found a website describing it. apparently the maximum ram i can have is 1gig. compaq seem to have done something strange to the motherboard *sigh* zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/configurator/models.asp?root=us
might have your compaq modelhttp://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument?lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&docname=c00032472#
that might be your mobo? - the chipset supports 3 gig, so the 1 gig limit seems artificial possibly simply that 1 gig modules were never tested for that model.
worth an experiment if you can purchase and try things from a local store.
misc notes: 2 ram modules will give you 5 to 10% more performance than 1 due to the nforce2 design (dual channel) - ddr400 might be less expensive than 333 and should probably work ok but it's important to run them at the same speed as the processor fsb. - there is a darned good chance that an athlon xp 2500 mobile cpu will work fine in that board if the bios has multiplier settings, but don't swap the cpu yourself if you have no experience with athlon xp's - (bit off-topic but some extra cpu horses should help the virtual pc thing as well)
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http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/configurator/models.asp?root=us
might have your compaq modelhttp://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument?lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&docname=c00032472#
that might be your mobo? - the chipset supports 3 gig, so the 1 gig limit seems artificial possibly simply that 1 gig modules were never tested for that model.
worth an experiment if you can purchase and try things from a local store.
misc notes: 2 ram modules will give you 5 to 10% more performance than 1 due to the nforce2 design (dual channel) - ddr400 might be less expensive than 333 and should probably work ok but it's important to run them at the same speed as the processor fsb. - there is a darned good chance that an athlon xp 2500 mobile cpu will work fine in that board if the bios has multiplier settings, but don't swap the cpu yourself if you have no experience with athlon xp's - (bit off-topic but some extra cpu horses should help the virtual pc thing as well)
also, any ddr400 should run fine at 333, so no point in ultra-premium brands, samsung and micron chips are good usually - if you can't return the ram (not a local store) then you would be safest with whatever chips the current module is using since compaq probably didn't allow for a large variation in brands when setting up the bios...