I would like to upgrade an old laptop with some RAM since I can't afford a new laptop for probably another 2 years.

I currently have a 4 year old laptop with 512MB of RAM and I would like to upgrade. I have two slots available. I heard that the RAM in each slot should be the same to work properly so I am stuck buying two chips. I might as well get two 1 GB chips to get the most possible upgrade but I am wondering if it's possible to over RAM your computer if the rest of it is pretty old?

So my wonderful nerd friends...tell me?

Last edited by StereoPrincess on May-15-2008 at 21:08

No you can add as much as you want, it just means instead of the ram being the slowest component, or bottleneck in the system, something else will be.

Probably the CPU.

And you could just put in one 1GB stick, it wont work as well but should be enough of a upgrade if its a really old laptop.

But yeah rams cheap, why not splurge

I'll RAM you

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4 year old laptop, upgrading... Does not make much sense, but if you really can't get a new one for a while, put a 1GB stick in there.

HOWEVER, 4 years old likely means PC2700 DDR, and those SODIMMs aren't particularly cheap. Older stuff tends to cost more.

Good luck finding it cheap, Margaret. You may be better off checking Craigslist for that kind of thing.


To Import: Doesn't matter how much RAM she adds, it won't be increasing speed of the RAM itself, just the capacity. Even if she added faster memory, the all memory would default to the speed of the slowest module. So yeah, the RAM would still be a slow component, but RAM is rarely the bottleneck. Even today, the DDR3 stuff is terribly poor value considering it has a very, very small lead in performance over mainstream 800MHz DDR2 modules. Memory bandwith isn't much of a problem these days for most applications.

quote:

Originally posted by Import No you can add as much as you want, it just means instead of the ram being the slowest component, or bottleneck in the system, something else will be. Probably the CPU. And you could just put in one 1GB stick, it wont work as well but should be enough of a upgrade if its a really old laptop. But yeah rams cheap, why not splurge

Sorry but all these points are wrong. Vertigo is right with everything though.

Ideally you can add 2x1GB sticks of ram which will make it two GB total, there's is a limit to how much ram you can put with a 32 bit operating system (which is like 3.2 GB). It's always better to have more RAM than less, if you have extra it's not going to increase speed or anything, it just won't be utilizing it.

The bottleneck of any computer system now is the Hard Drive, it's a mechanical moving part that can break down fairly easily. Not the CPU.

And yeah if the laptop is 4 years old, hopefully it's DDR 200-pin cause that would be the cheapest RAM for that age (About $80 a gig).

Yeah, fuck, I can't get a new laptop until I graduate which will mean that this one has to last me to write a PhD thesis. And it's so pathetically bad right now, I will have to back up format and start again with a little bit more RAM.

You do not need to replace your 4 year old laptop, just upgrade it. If you are using Windows XP, then you do not need anything more than 1GB of RAM.

I am using a 6 year old computer, with XP with 1GB of ram, and it does everything I need it to do.

Buying new computers is for suckers (seriously).

quote:

Originally posted by VERTiG0 To Import: Doesn't matter how much RAM she adds, it won't be increasing speed of the RAM itself, just the capacity. Even if she added faster memory, the all memory would default to the speed of the slowest module. So yeah, the RAM would still be a slow component, but RAM is rarely the bottleneck. Even today, the DDR3 stuff is terribly poor value considering it has a very, very small lead in performance over mainstream 800MHz DDR2 modules. Memory bandwith isn't much of a problem these days for most applications.

Yeah i think i explained myself incorrectly, it wont be the slowest in terms of speed, but she wont be running into a issue of having to little ram for a program to run efficiently, on the contrary she will probably end up with a surplus that she rarely if ever uses(If she puts in another 2GB and is only running basic office apps).

For example i have 4GB of the 800MHz DDR2 ram, i might as well have 3GB and a better CPU, as i have more ram then i normally need. (and yes i have 64bit, as much as im having difficulty explaining myself im not that daft )

quote:

Originally posted by Orko Buying new computers is for suckers (seriously).

lol. sweet!

quote:

Originally posted by Invasionmix The bottleneck of any computer system now is the Hard Drive, Not the CPU.

please elaborate.... in terms of speed of data transmission and so forth

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quote:

Originally posted by jeeper_095 please elaborate.... in terms of speed of data transmission and so forth

Lol are you serious?

A CPU request is fetched in nanoseconds, HD write/read is in microseconds, I think.

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quote:

Originally posted by Cosmic Fur Lol are you serious?

yes

quote:

A CPU request is fetched in nanoseconds, HD write/read is in microseconds, I think.

i see.

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