RAM upgrade

cerastes

I'm considering an upgrade of my laptop RAM,
I thought ram was in matched pairs and considered this might mean each card was of the same capacity as any other in the device.
It turns out my laptop has 3GB RAM, its painfully slow, I planned on doing a clean install but as its capable of having up to 8gb of ram, I'm thinking of upgrading that anyway,

How do I ensure any pair of ram cards are matched? As the capacity doesn't seem if it matters, given mine are an uneven match.
I may buy one larger capacity card now as 4gb is coming in around €40 and replace the lower capacity card and then possibly the other one.

Lu Tze

What are you doing when it slows down? What are your current specs? Are you actually exceeding the 3GB of ram, check task manager?

Typically i would say replacing the hard drivewith an SSD would give a better improvement, unless you are actually exceeding the 3GB of physical ram.

You should also check whether you have a 32bit or 64bit version of windows, as you wont be able to utilise any of the extra ram if it is 32bit.

cerastes

I don't know how it could exceed the ram capacity, but in task manager it can get up to close to it's Max capacity, so 2.8 GB, not doing anything especially, just browsing or have a few tabs open, hence why I plan to do this and maybe a clean install.

Its 64bit win 7, its Max capacity is 8gb, I just really want to know about matching RM cards and can I buy say 4 GB now and use it my existing 2gb card and maybe later buy a separate 4gb, I don't want to replace the HDD as that's just extra cost as my HDD is ok and I've cleaned it out a bit and stored files on an external drive, might look into taking an image of it in case it all goes south, whereas sticking in one ram card if that's acceptable, not necessarily whether it might work or not, I think it might, but that it would be acceptably paired with the other ram card, I previously thought they came in pairsnd even pairs of matched capacity, but on testing mine they aren't, one is 1 and the other is 2 GB, I'd actually thought I'd only 2gb of ram it is so bad.

Never used to be like this, just over time it go steadily worse, so really I'm thinking clean install and upgrade the ram, no need for me to have a functioning hard drive laying around with no use just to replace it with a ssd as the current setup worked fine when new, improving ram seems to me to be an easy upgrade option.

PropJoe10

A good resource to use when buying RAM is the Crucial RAM advisor tool:

http://eu.crucial.com/eur/en

Once you put in your laptop make and model, it'll tell you what the max capacity is, along with suggestions for compatible RAM. Dont buy off their site, just use it to see what type of RAM is best and then buy elsewhere for a bit cheaper.

My usual answer for fixing RAM issues on a machine such as yours is "get rid of Windows as its a RAM hog" but maybe you like and need to use Windows so an upgrade of RAM would probably help you. As the previous person mentioned, an SSD would also give you a major performance increase.

cerastes

PropJoe10 wrote: »

A good resource to use when buying RAM is the Crucial RAM advisor tool:

http://eu.crucial.com/eur/en

Once you put in your laptop make and model, it'll tell you what the max capacity is, along with suggestions for compatible RAM. Dont buy off their site, just use it to see what type of RAM is best and then buy elsewhere for a bit cheaper.

My usual answer for fixing RAM issues on a machine such as yours is "get rid of Windows as its a RAM hog" but maybe you like and need to use Windows so an upgrade of RAM would probably help you. As the previous person mentioned, an SSD would also give you a major performance increase.

I've already done that from another site just to confirm as I did what youre suggesting before posting but I'd already just put in the laptop make and model one to google.
I don't want an ssd at the moment plus this is my windows laptop, in have another laptop with Ubuntu, just want to keep one MS as its convenient for me.

Any place you recommend for ram? Used to have a load of places I'd consider, komplett would have been one and elara plus a few lesser known ones which I can't recall, I know there's an Irish place that does all sorts of electronic and accessory stuff as I went to pick up from their place of business our in celbridge I think but I can't recall exactly where it is or what they are calls.

Anyone know about the matched pairing of ram cards or will any two of a set make/specbe capable of being suitably paired?or any comments on unevenly distributed ram capacity between cards, ie my 1 and 2 GB cards currently being used?

PropJoe10

cerastes wrote: »

I've already done that from another site just to confirm as I did what youre suggesting before posting but I'd already just put in the laptop make and model one to google.
I don't want an ssd at the moment plus this is my windows laptop, in have another laptop with Ubuntu, just want to keep one MS as its convenient for me.

Any place you recommend for ram? Used to have a load of places I'd consider, komplett would have been one and elara plus a few lesser known ones which I can't recall, I know there's an Irish place that does all sorts of electronic and accessory stuff as I went to pick up from their place of business our in celbridge I think but I can't recall exactly where it is or what they are calls.

Anyone know about the matched pairing of ram cards or will any two of a set make/specbe capable of being suitably paired?or any comments on unevenly distributed ram capacity between cards, ie my 1 and 2 GB cards currently being used?

The last time I bought RAM i actually bought off eBay but I think it was DDR2 i was looking for, which is a bit more expensive and harder to find these days. Any of the online retailers like komplett, Elara, dabs are all fairly reputable and reliable.

When I buy RAM, I try and stick with the following:

- Buy sticks made by the same manufacturer
- Buy sticks that are the same speed. If you buy sticks of different speeds, the speed will be limited to the slowest speed stick

Mixing 1GB and 2GB sticks is usually fine although it'll depend on how many RAM slots you have, as to whether this is an issue or not.

Hope this helps a bit!

cerastes

OK thanks, for anyone else that cares to offer an input, the sticks to my suprise are different capacities and different manufacturers?? Bit surprised asnid replaced ram in my older laptop and on a tower years ago and both instances the slots had the same manufactured and capacity ram cards, I cecked how many slots and there are 2, never considered there'd be more but its a fairly standard laptop, maybe more powerful laptops have more slots.

cerastes

Just rechecked it
Bank0 has 1gb manufacturer is kingston
Bank1 has 2gb manufacturer is Samsung??

From previous posts it seems to rule out being even able too use the existing 2gb as I cannot locate any capacity made by Samsung.
If I get one 4gb card and swapmit with the 2gb card is that a workable and use able solution? Or am I limiting the usefulness of the 4gbcard breplyy running the 1gb card in there also.

I'm tempted to by some ram on adverts and just try it out?

maki

What do you mean you can't locate capacity made by Samsung?

While two matched sticks is preferable, modern hardware can run fine on mismatched capacities and CAS latencies. It'll just run at the speed of the slowest stick. So in your case, assuming you buy a new 4GB stick, replace the 1GB with that and you'll have 6GB.

cerastes

maki wrote: »

What do you mean you can't locate capacity made by Samsung?

While two matched sticks is preferable, modern hardware can run fine on mismatched capacities and CAS latencies. It'll just run at the speed of the slowest stick. So in your case, assuming you buy a new 4GB stick, replace the 1GB with that and you'll have 6GB.

I meant I thought a previous poster had suggested using the same manufacturers, I cant locate anything for sale by Samsung.
I can see my samsung card is 2gb, both run at 1066mhz, Im not sure of the advantage of running a card that has a higher speed as it seems it will run at the slower stick, I thought it was best to have matched capacity in terms of memory too ie one of each of 2,4, etc gb's.
I'd intended to replace both sticks and none seem to be available secondhand for SODIMM DDR3 although Im a bit hesitant of buying secondhand for that kind of item, even off ebay as the prices are no better than elara/dabs anyway.
Not sure which figures relate to latency, and I see some mention about error correction.

maki

Don't worry about manufacturers. All this matching stuff comes from the days of SDRAM, RDRAM, and especially SIMM when it actually did make a difference. DDR can handle it without any issues. Any performance decline from running mismatched sticks won't be noticed unless you're running benchmarks. For everyday use you're really not going to notice the difference.

As for error correction, make sure you get Non-ECC RAM. ECC RAM won't work in your motherboard.

unkel

cerastes wrote: »

in task manager it can get up to close to it's Max capacity, so 2.8 GB, not doing anything especially, just browsing or have a few tabs open

Before you consider upgrading, have a look in control panel to see are there any programs you don't need. If so, uninstall them.

A new install will always bring down RAM use -> go for it if you can. It's the cheapest way to increase speed of an aging computer

If that doesn't help (enough), pick up a stick of 4GB DDR3 and replace the 1GB in there. You'll double your memory for a very small outlay. Want more speed again? Buy an SSD

My main laptop is now about 8 years old, running Windows 8.1 on an SSD (and with only 2GB of RAM) and it is flying (for basic use, email, surfing, etc.)

Lu Tze

cerastes wrote: »

I've already done that from another site just to confirm as I did what youre suggesting before posting but I'd already just put in the laptop make and model one to google.
I don't want an ssd at the moment plus this is my windows laptop, in have another laptop with Ubuntu, just want to keep one MS as its convenient for me.

Any place you recommend for ram? Used to have a load of places I'd consider, komplett would have been one and elara plus a few lesser known ones which I can't recall, I know there's an Irish place that does all sorts of electronic and accessory stuff as I went to pick up from their place of business our in celbridge I think but I can't recall exactly where it is or what they are calls.

Anyone know about the matched pairing of ram cards or will any two of a set make/specbe capable of being suitably paired?or any comments on unevenly distributed ram capacity between cards, ie my 1 and 2 GB cards currently being used?

That could be memoryc?

unkel

Aye, I'll second memoryc. Reliable company with good prices and good customer service. I've bought from them for a very long time myself.

mordeith

unkel wrote: »

Aye, I'll second memoryc. Reliable company with good prices and good customer service. I've bought from them for a very long time myself.

+1