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

Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2005 11:32 am
by 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!

Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2005 11:35 am
by 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.

Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2005 11:59 am
by 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.

Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2005 1:35 pm
by AceCombat
Vertigo Zer0 wrote: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! :)

Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2005 2:56 pm
by 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.

Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2005 2:57 pm
by Flatlander
Here's the specs..

Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2005 9:09 am
by Pun
Thanks, guys. I ordered 2 x 512. It was under a hundred bucks.