RAM question! Please help!

Technology and Gaming Help and Support
#1

I have a crappy PC i use for firefox and some not too demanding games.

It has only 512 mb of RAM and I want to buy more.

The question is, i didnt know how many mhz should the memory have, so I did a report with everest and this is what it said.

Motherboard: CPU Type DualCore Intel Pentium E2140, 1600 MHz (8 x 200) Motherboard Name ECS 945GZT-M (2 PCI, 1 PCI-E x16, 2 DDR2 DIMM, Audio, Video, LAN) Motherboard Chipset Intel Lakeport-G i945GZ System Memory 503 MB (DDR2-533 DDR2 SDRAM) DIMM1: NovaTech Solutions NA2D512M37D 512 MB DDR2-533 DDR2 SDRAM (5-4-4-11 @ 266 MHz) (4-4-4-11 @ 266 MHz) (3-3-3-8 @ 200 MHz)

what is the maximum amount of mhz the new RAM can have?

thanks in advance. and please forgive my english, im from argentina.

#2

You need DDR2 RAM… AFAIK the speed doesn’t matter.

#3

yes it does…he must consult his manual or go with a low-mid speed (667 or lower to be safe).

If you can afford it, try to get 2GB or more, but split the ram between two cards for dual channel if supported.

#4

Yes, the speed does matter. Certain motherboards cannot support higher speeds.

For instance, my motherboard can support a maximum of 8GB DDR2 1066. No faster than that.

Edit: I did the research for you.

Your motherboard supports a maximum of 2GB 240-pin DDR2 533

#5

thanks! is there any way to make this value higher, like for example, updating the bios?

and what do mhz mean and why they matter?

#6

No, it’s a limit in the hardware itself.
And MHz is the speed at which the memory operates. The higher the number the better.

#7

how old is your mobo? my new x58 one will support up to 16gb of ddr3 2000.

#8

Ram is very inexpensive it should only cost you about 50$ in total. It doesn’t matter if you buy 667 it’ll automatically under clock itself.

#9

But it is ok to buy 2gb even if the mhz is too low?

#10

It doesn’t matter if the speed is low on the RAM, you’ll just get slower performance. I’d suggest getting the fastest memory you can get, though it would be a waste of money to buy memory faster than what your motherboard supports.

#11

It would actually be more expensive these days to get 553mhz because they don’t make it anymore, just get 2 sticks of 1gb DDR2 that’s clocked at 667mhz. That’s what I did with my laptop that’s designed for 533 and it works great.

#12

I thought this is going to be the Raminator question thread :frowning:

#13

Lolwut. I just buy ram and i could not care less about the speed. It speeds up my computer pretty fast to me.

Also, your motherboard needs DDR2 ram. I have to use DDR ram which is slower and expensive.

But then you will need to know the right pc type. I have to use pc3200.

#14

Err, the pc type is basically just telling the speed and version of the RAM.
For instance, all DDR RAM at a speed of 400 is PC 3200, all DDR2 RAM at a speed of 1066 is PC2 8500. Thus, if you just buy ram and don’t care about speed, you could technically just buy any RAM that starts with PC rather than PC2 (DDR2) or PC3 (DDR3)

#15

I have to upgrade to 4GB pretty soon but I keep putting it off because I’m running PC8500 1066 dual channel 2gb so when I’m playing a game it goes super high speed like 200FPS at first so it looks like its gonna be OK but then it goes to 1fps because it starts filling up the page file. :frowning:

#16

What kind of motherboard do you have?

#17

ASUS P5KPL-CM
And my processor is a 2.2Ghz core2 duo running at 2.98Ghz.

Surprisingly, it’s not that bad, it runs most games flawlessly, it’s just those few that like to chew on my ram too much that are lagging.

#18

That’s a better motherboard than what I have that’s for sure. Hey I found a good deal for you for ram 4GB for 90$

check it out:

#19

Not quite sure, but https://www.crucial.com has a very nice RAM compatibility tool that will tell you exactly what RAM your computer can take.

#20

huh thats what I thought, Im Disapoint

Good Sir I do believe we have the same Specs,
however I can Upgrade my ASUS P5KPL-CM ram to 4gb (currently 2gb) for 54 bucks! :slight_smile:
Seems alot better than that 90$ Deal before…
https://www.crucial.com/store/mpartspecs.aspx?mtbpoid=195551B4A5CA7304

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