Upgrading RAM Help!

[wwwd]

My brother's got a PC and it's slow. So he's asked me to upgrade the RAM in his machine, and while I know the basics (where to slot it in, etc.) I'm confused about the different voltages, and the difference between DDR and DDR2.

 

His computer is an Acer Extensa E210 and currently has 512MB RAM.

 

I have opened it up to take a quick look and it has 4 slots; 2 blue (one which has RAM in) and 2 yellow. I'm not sure what the significance of that is.

 

So can anyone tell me which RAM I could buy online which would work in this machine?

 

Your help would be appreciated!

 

Oh, and it's running Vista too - not sure if that makes a difference?

[dutchkev]

if his pc uses DDR ram, he can only upgrade with DDR ram. (it should say on the RAM stick what type of ram it is)

 

also how old is the pc? some pc's can only upgrade to a maximum of 2GB RAM (1GB is sufficiant for XP)

Edited September 4, 2009 by dutchkev

[SteveB]

For maximum performance you should install the RAM in pairs - that's why the slots are coloured.

 

Take a look at the label on your existing memory. It should state something like PC4200 - that's the memory type you should get.

Edited September 4, 2009 by SteveB

[LiamGTR]

32bit Vista can only see 3gb ram so don't bother with anymore unless your oging to get him 64 bit

 

Also stick what ever you buy in the blue slots 1st as they are the primary slots the PC looks for 1st...then yellows are secondary

[stoo2000]

http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/listparts....=Extensa%20E210

 

That should answer your questions.

 

obviously DDR2 PC2-6400 is the quickest it can have..

[wwwd]

http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/listparts....=Extensa%20E210

 

That should answer your questions.

 

obviously DDR2 PC2-6400 is the quickest it can have..

Thanks for that.

 

But if I can only buy it in a 2GB size (as the link shows) and the maximum Vista can use is 3GB, then will I have to put the 2GB with the existing 512MB, which makes 2,512B of RAM?

[stoo2000]

I'll take a guess that the installed memory is PC2-5300.

 

Remove that, and install: http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/mpartspecs...924566DA5CA7304 That will give him 2GB of PC2-6400 which is faster than the old ram.

 

If you don't remove the old memory and it is slower, you will force the new memory to run at a lower speed.

[wwwd]

I'll take a guess that the installed memory is PC2-5300.

 

Remove that, and install: http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/mpartspecs...924566DA5CA7304 That will give him 2GB of PC2-6400 which is faster than the old ram.

 

If you don't remove the old memory and it is slower, you will force the new memory to run at a lower speed.

Just been looking on eBuyer, could I buy 3 of these instead?

 

Clicky

 

They're cheaper too.

[stoo2000]

They are slower too.

 

The deal with the Crucial ram is that in a kit, if the motherboard is dual channel, you ideally want matched sticks. Which you get from Crucial, but yes those would fit.