Upgrading my PC...
 

Hi all,

I need/want to upgrade a PC with extra memory, but I'm a total noob with regard to these things, and experience has learned that trusting shop clerks usually isn't the way to go with these things, and I'm hoping some of you guys could provide me with some info on what would be the best way to go.

My system specs are:

P4 1.4gHz processor, 256 MB Ram (2x128MB), Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB videocard, and the following motherboard: 850 pro2 (ms-6523), whatever that may mean, specs on that can be found here: http://www.motherboard.cz/mb/msi/850Pro2.htm

Now, when looking for new memory, I found several different types of memory, while it seems not all motherboards support every feature or type of memory....and furthemore, on some forums people advised 2 of the same (smaller)memory modules instead of one big one, if your motherboard would support dual channel (?), another thing I do not know what it means, but supposedly it makes your pc run faster with 2 modules of the same memory installed...?

I'm looking to upgrade with another 512 MB of ram, and hope to remove one 128MB ram module from this PC to add to yet another PC, making me effectively atm have only 1 128MB module in the PC I want to upgrade.

So I was hoping if some people here could provide me with any additional info on what to look out for when upgrading with new ram, and what type of memory would best work with my (older) motherboard..

Lots of thanks in advance, as I simply do not have the faintest clue about these things.. :)

Wow, that's old. You probably won't be able to play civ4 on that system. Or didn't you intend that?

Try it at MyCom, my personal experience is that they usually are very helpfull and come with the right answers most of the time. There should be one in Utrecht.

Hmm, got another followup question...

How do I know which motherboard is in what PC? I've opened up both, one (the one mentioned above) has the type written on the board itself, but the other hasn't.. is there any way for the PC to tell me what kind of motherboard is in there exactly?

Tried System Information? There are some tools on the web that can retrieve this type of info, maybe got some at home.

yes, I tried "systeemeigenschappen/apparaatbeheer", but to no avail, it only tells me processor, OS and amount of Ram, it seems.

Here some info from the MSI site:

http://www.msi.com.tw/program/produc...ail.php?UID=91

Note that the number of pins is different from the nummer on the Czech site. [scratch]

An indication pricewise. Rambus always was known to be pricey. Which it still is at twice the price of more modern RAM. http://www.shop4memory.com/products/rdram.asp

here are your mobo spec's without the porn ad's :) and a little more detailed too

http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p...del=850_Pro2LE

and here's a marketing promo for the mobo explaining the ram a little better

http://www.msi.com.tw/html/service/t...6523/page1.htm


edit: dooh, didn't see Beam's link to the MSI site [blush]

This might be useful:

http://www.memoryx.net/miin850prome.html
http://www.samintl.com/mem/n10983.htm

The essential thing to consider is that you have the rarely used RIMM memory (Rambus Inline Memory Module); which always needs to be in pairs. Best is to have pairs of the same size. It was only popular for a very short period (2001/2002) because of the disadvantages RIMM has (for instance data-leaking and neing expensive).