Buying RAM

Oldie

Registered user
Joined
Dec 6, 2012
Messages
441
Reaction score
0
Location
UK
I have a single 4GB module in my desktop computer (see pic) and I want to add another identical one but I'm confused by all the numbers! I have a spare slot which I can use.

I had a look on ebay for DDR3 12800U and some say 2Rx8 and some are 1Rx8. How specific do I have to be when ordering?

Thanks..

IMG-20181227-101737679.jpg
 
RAM works better in equal pairs.

Try www.crucial.com You can enter your machine type and it will tell you what the most RAM you can have and what configuration for your PC. They will also sell you it, but at the least, it will give you the correct info for the PC you have, even if you don't buy it from them.
 
sorry but to be fair if you have to ask the question then are you sure YOU should be doing it?

Info required:-

make and type of motherboard, what kind of memory does it take, is what you have compatible with a new stick of a different type.

Some boards will take 1 stick of any size but a pair must be matched, what is maximum the chipset will support.


best guess on info here would be, buy a pair of memory sticks matched, you should be ok if DDR3 12800

the r2x8 and r1x8 in laymans terms is memory chips on one side of the stick or both sides of the stick.

less layman 1Rx8 means it is a single-rank module and 2Rx8 means it is a dual-rank module module. Rank is a data block which is 64 bits wide without Error Correction Code (ECC) created using some, or all of the memory chips on a module. The x8 in them specifies the number of banks in the memory module. Higher the number of banks, the fewer the chips in the memory module, the better the reliability and power consumption.

Compatibility is generally not an issue in most cases. But you should go through the motherboard manufacturer's guide of supported RAM modules just to make sure if they are compatible or not.

However do NOT NOT mix up PC3 and PC3L as pc3l is low voltage and if you put a low voltage stick in a pc3 slot you will blow the stick.
 
RAM works better in equal pairs.

Try www.crucial.com You can enter your machine type and it will tell you what the most RAM you can have and what configuration for your PC. They will also sell you it, but at the least, it will give you the correct info for the PC you have, even if you don't buy it from them.
This. You can also download an App which will tell you what RAM you have, and what you can have. It works very well. Crucial prices are generally very reasonable.
 
Excellent, thanks.

I did manage to find some of the original specs for my computer and apparently I can have up to a max. of 16GB of ram. What concerned me was some of the ebay listings saying that their Ram only worked with AMD (which I presume is a processor) although I think that I have a Pentium.

I had a look at crucial.com but they don't list my computer (Fujitsu).

However, I think that the above explanations have given me enough ammo to have a punt at buying a matched pair.
 
Excellent, thanks.

I did manage to find some of the original specs for my computer and apparently I can have up to a max. of 16GB of ram. What concerned me was some of the ebay listings saying that their Ram only worked with AMD (which I presume is a processor) although I think that I have a Pentium.

I had a look at crucial.com but they don't list my computer (Fujitsu).

However, I think that the above explanations have given me enough ammo to have a punt at buying a matched pair.


Use the scanner tool in the links provided above from Crucial and you'll see what your motherboard can support and then get yourself a matched pair....doesn't have to be from Crucial as there are lots of good RAM suppliers...Corsair and Kingston come to mind..but if you really have Pentium processor you may not notice much of an improvement in performance.
 
I'd also not bother with anything over 8Gb as it's unlikely your system will be able to use it as it was designed to run with 4Gb and your doubling it.

Think of RAM like a "doctors waiting room" where instructions/calculations/programs etc. wait to be dealt with by the processor. As long as the waiting room is "big enough", then having an even bigger one is of no actual benefit to speed of being dealt with. So having a bigger doctors waiting room is good if it's full and it lets other patients wait in line ready to be seen, but having a huge one will not actually speed up how quickly your seen - or programs dealt with in the PC world.

If it's a performance boost your looking for, then a solid state hard drive is probably the single biggest bang for your buck you can get, but it is a lot more expensive than RAM, but I will 100% tell you will notice the difference, whereas putting in 8Gb of RAM you probably won't?

James
 
Good advice, especially as I'm running out of space on my hard drive. Thanks
 
I think of it as RAM is the size of your desk, and the Hard Drive is the size of your bookshelves.
The bigger the desk, the more documents you can have open at once.
The more shelves you have, the more documents you can store.
Jesim1 is right in that you’ll see the best performance increase from an SSD but, if it’s an older system, another 4G of RAM should be pretty cheap and you will see some benefit.
 
I think of it as RAM is the size of your desk, and the Hard Drive is the size of your bookshelves.
The bigger the desk, the more documents you can have open at once.
The more shelves you have, the more documents you can store.
Jesim1 is right in that you’ll see the best performance increase from an SSD but, if it’s an older system, another 4G of RAM should be pretty cheap and you will see some benefit.

I recognise this - have you ever sold computers! LOL :D

Good advice.

James
 
Also depends what operating system you plan on running. If 32 bit Windows 10 then 4GB RAM is enough. If it's 64 bit Windows 10 it will still run with 4GB ram but would probably be better with 8GB but there are so many other factors to consider. It all depends on what you want to use the PC for.
 
I managed to find the spec sheet (see link below). I have the Pentium g2020, 4GB Ram, Windows 7 professional and 220GB hard disk (although that doesn't seem to be in the list). I have used 180GB so far.

I managed to improve things by looking for recent softwear updates which coincided with my running problems and that was Avast. I uninstalled Avast and replaced it with AVG and things are running more freely now.

http://www.nise-solutions.be/nl/images/products/fujitsu/desktop/ds-esprimo-p410-e85.pdf
 
I managed to find the spec sheet (see link below). I have the Pentium g2020, 4GB Ram, Windows 7 professional and 220GB hard disk (although that doesn't seem to be in the list). I have used 180GB so far.

I managed to improve things by looking for recent softwear updates which coincided with my running problems and that was Avast. I uninstalled Avast and replaced it with AVG and things are running more freely now.

http://www.nise-solutions.be/nl/images/products/fujitsu/desktop/ds-esprimo-p410-e85.pdf

This is a base model which is fine for surfing the net and general low use office applications, but I would not spend a lot of money on it as technology moves on and it will eventually die as it's probably 6/7+ years old already at a guess?

Your machine has the 256Gb hard drive fitted - some is used for it's own use, so you get what is left - 220Gb in your case, and as you have used 180Gb so far then it's almost full as it will always need space to re arrange things while it's working or do updates. This would mean your looking for 500Gb of SSD - https://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en/ct500...-_-uk&ef_id=W4cbnQAAAJNloUpZ:20181229170148:s so about £60 - But call them and ask if it will fit, this is an old PC remember.

Add in the RAM at say £30 for 4Gb and your looking at spending £100 on a pretty old machine. I'd be tempted to sell it for what you can get £20/30 and put more to it an get a new system if you can afford it, this will probably last another 5/7 years - so probably a better option in the long term. But if your on a budget, you could always get the RAM and an external HHD to save some space on your internal one, and you can just plug it in like this one: https://www.expertec.co.uk/250gb-hi...qaDboS4i1VqEaa6yHqoDFJGINo41MpcMaAvKKEALw_wcB

So spend a little to get you by or spend a bit more for the future - it's up to you now really?

James
 
Thanks for the links. I presume that if I decide to buy a new computer I'm going to need external storage anyway to transfer all my documents and photos, or is this done by using a cable between the old one and mew one? It's so long since I changed computers that I forget how I did it (possibly asked someone to do it for me!).

I'd prefer to keep my existing setup as I am familiar with Windows 7. I used Windows 10 on a friends laptop for about 6 months and got frustrated by the constant updates required.
 
If you're happy with your pc and just want to free up space then get yourself an external hard drive and transfer your files across. For less than £50 you can get a 1TB drive connected by usb cable. Simply drag and drop from your pc to the hard drive.
 
Take a look at https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/win...l-data-folders-in-windows-vista-the-easy-way/ if you want to add an external hard drive (or better still fit an internal one assuming you've a spare SATA connector). Also, as has been suggested, get yourself a solid-state drive and clone your existing C: drive to it for a very useful performance improvement. Western Digital SSDs come with a version of Acronis (downloaded from the WD support site https://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?p=119) which works very well. Ig your version of Window 7 is 32-bit then 4GB of memory is all it will use. If you're on a 64-bit version then another 4 GB will help.
 


Back
Top Bottom