Anyone got any old Ram lying about ?

[Howard]

Hi all

Looking to try and sort out dads PC a bit , he's been moaning that it's very slow , had a quick gander and it only has 256mb of ram ! it's an old Dell Dimension 4600

So , I need some but don't want to order expensive ram and wondered if some of you IT types might have some ( very ) old ones knocking about.

Need DDR PC 3200 / 2700 1gb sticks x 2 please not DDR2

Thanks

H

 

[daveenty]

I just had a look in my store of useless bits and found 1 stick of 2700 x 1 gig, the rest seems to be 512mb with various other bits from 128 upwards if they're any good to you?

They've not moved for years but I knew someone would want them at some stage.

 

[Howard]

Ooo yes , it maybe

I'm not massively tech savvy , but it has 4 slots , could I put one 1 gb in one slot and 2 x 512 in the other two ? Or does it need to be a matched pair ?

Many thanks

 

[developer]

Do the scan to see what you need, then put your hand in your pocket you tight bugger:

uk.crucial.com - System scanner

 

[daveenty]

Should get away with that, I've used stranger combinations in the past. I'll go and check it out.

OK, what I have go which should work together is a 1Gb stick and a 512Mb one. These are both PC2700 330MHz, whereas I have another pair of 512Mb but they're 400MHz.

These should also work, but will reduce the speed to the slowest denominator (330)

I'm not familiar with your board, but some are very fussy about the actual siting of the memory, in that it must go in certain slots.

Finally, I've had this stuff for years and, whilst it was working when I stripped it, I've no idea if it's any good now, but you're welcome to try it.

 

[daveenty]

Just put all 4 pieces in a padded envelope so if you PM me an address I'll get them in the post tomorrow hopefully or Friday if you want.

 

[Palfrem]

I have an oldish Dell Dimension 9200 (I never quite got round to binning the thing) and the RAM is still intact. I think I put some upgraded bits in too.

 

[John]

Ewe should have a look on that Crucial site - ewe can input the make and model and it will tell ewe what you need i.e. whether matched pairs or not.

 

[Howard]

Just put all 4 pieces in a padded envelope so if you PM me an address I'll get them in the post tomorrow hopefully or Friday if you want.

You have PM

 

[daveenty]

Replied.

 

[Rory]

Hi all

Looking to try and sort out dads PC a bit , he's been moaning that it's very slow ,

Is it running XP?

"Supporting" my FIL's old PC was driving me mad so I've just upgraded it to a refurbed Dell running Win7 I got off eBay for £120 - he's astonished at the difference.

I don't know the refurb people do it for the price - apart from the OS (it's an offical Microsoft licence for refurbed machines) it also had a new DVD writer and a new 500GB SATA HDD (was advertised as having 320GB).

 

[John]

Taking a step back on this - I'd be surprised if upgrading the memory makes a massive difference.

It will improve performance for certain (I would run it at 2GB ideally) but rebuilding from scratch will also take it back to as it was when it left the factory.

However, this is a lot of work and it needs some more work to be as secure as possible now that it is no longer supported (difference browser, standard user security user for browsing, no email hosted on the machine itself etc.).

 

[Howard]

All he uses it for is doing invoices and browsing the web.

I guess as web pages have got more power and memory hungry , if hasn't been able to keep up.

It's a P4 2.8 ghz

When you turn it on in the morning , sometimes you can wait as long as 45 mins before it is in a useable state

I've been over it with malware bytes , spy bot and hitman pro , nothing untoward on there.

 

[Benzowner]

All he uses it for is doing invoices and browsing the web.

I guess as web pages have got more power and memory hungry , if hasn't been able to keep up.

It's a P4 2.8 ghz

When you turn it on in the morning , sometimes you can wait as long as 45 mins before it is in a useable state

I've been over it with malware bytes , spy bot and hitman pro , nothing untoward on there.

Defrag and disc cleaner? a bit obvious, but if you are anything like me, I forget the obvious obviously

 

[Howard]

Done it

I'm almost positive it's to do with the minuscule amount of ram ( 256mb )

We'll see , I'll report back

 

[daveenty]

Sorry to be late posting back Howard, envelope should be with you tomorrow so hopefully it'll help with your problem. If it works in your Dell...

 

[John]

My money is on natural Windows bloating caused by everyday use then!

 

[crockers]

Ewe should have a look on that Crucial site - ewe can input the make and model and it will tell ewe what you need i.e. whether matched pairs or not.

All these ewes are in need of a ram.

 

[Howard]

I clocked that at the time , but couldn't come up with a witty response lol

Ram arrived yesterday , many thanks

 

[John]

I tried to get sheep in there but struggled with ovine I could type it in.