how to tell which ram is right

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tonyjai

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my sisters pc wants a ram upgrade....there is currently 128mb ram in there. the computer was brought about 4years ago from tiny which has now unfortunely gone bust. i believe that it is not the ddr ram so what sort of ram is it? how to i check? i am considering a 128mb or a 256mb ram cardm just to keep it going for a couple of years more.

i remember reading from somewhere that you can download a program onto your pc and it can check everything for you. thanks...
 
its possibly SD-RAM - if you open the case and look in the motherboard, the ram is in slots near the CPU. there are clips at either end of the memory to push on and release the memory strip - pull it out and look - it should say somewhere on the memory itself what sort it is, or you can always take the strip into a pc shop and ask them.
 
99.9% certain that it'll be SDRAM. As Arb says, normally there's a code on it somewhere - type it into Google/Yahoo etc and you'll be able to find out in no time.

Or use this little resource:Everest Home Edition, which you can download for free. Extract it into a folder and run the program from the Everest icon, choose "Benchmark" from the options list, then "Memory Read" and it'll tell you exactly what kind of memory you have.

You can get decent secondhand RAM cheap as chips off somewhere like Ebay - £10-£15 for 128MB, tops, £20 or so for 256.
 
Along rossored's post, go to crucial.com and download their version which not only tells you what & how much mem you can get in but also takes you straight to the crucial page to order it.
 
lol...thanks guys...you are all correct....sdram it is....cheers.......thanks for the time
 
now, with the ram sorted. onto the next (the graphics card). i have checked that my motherboard has a integrated graphics card s3 savage 4 3d graphics core. the motherboard is the "MSI MS-6340M", the spec can be found here:

http://www.msicomputer.com/product/detail_spec/product_detail.asp?model=MS-6340M

so my question is, can i upgrade the graphics card? do i need to take out the intergrated one? my friend just put the better graphics card in with the integrated one still inside? how would the system know which graphics card to use and is there a slot on my motherboard for this new graphics card?
 
The integrated one will be actually part of the motherboard. You will have to disable it in BIOS although some BIOS's automatically disable the on-board card when they detect a new caed.

As the board has an AGP 4X slot then I would recommend a AGP card, but only if you are going to play 3D games etc, else it aint worth it. Even then given the machines spec I wouldn't be spending much!

JonnyT
 
thanks Johnyt, how would i know if the system would disable to integrated card and use the new card? is there a way to know?
 
By trying it!

Plug in the new card, connect the monitor to it and boot the machine up.

If you get output to the card then its working, if not then go into bios and see where you can disable the integrated one.

I reckon its 50:50 given my past ecperiences.

JonnyT
 
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