How do I know what RAM to buy for my laptop?

[Pun]

I sold this laptop several months ago. The guy never used it. I bought it back. I want to put some RAM in there. There's one slot open. I want another 256 to match the 256 thats in there now.

How do I figure out what's in there now?

The Product specs just say 256MB DDR SDRAM (1 x 256MB) at 266MHz, but what about cas latency and type of RAM, (no. of pins, etc.)

Please help if you can. Thx!

[Vertigo Zer0]

Go on Crucial.com and use their memory configuration tool. You select your laptop's make & model and the tool will tell you what kind of memory you need and how much memory your laptop can hold.

Couldn't be easier.

[Admiral LSD]

It'll most likely be a 144 pin SODIMM (Small Outline DIMM). These are standardised so you don't have to worry about finding ones for your particular machine as any should work (they *should* be fairly readily available. If not from regular computer shops, those that deal specifically in laptops). Being a laptop, I wouldn't be overly concerned about much more than the capacity of the module.

[AceCombat]

Go on Crucial.com and use their memory configuration tool. You select your laptop's make & model and the tool will tell you what kind of memory you need and how much memory your laptop can hold.

Couldn't be easier.

x2

had to use this for my mothers and my brothers laptops.

uber easy!

[Mobius]

If it's an XP machine, get a 512MB stick to make 768 MB of RAM. You probably have "shared" video memory - so 512 would drop to around 450MB with a 64MB AGP aperture.

450MB is not enough to keep XP happy - and because laptop hard drives are notoriously slow, having to use the windows swap file makes a laptop literally die.

512+ MB is good, and 1GB is better. With 768MB, you can *just about* guarantee no swap-file usage.

[Flatlander]

Here's the specs..

[Pun]

Thanks, guys. I ordered 2 x 512. It was under a hundred bucks.