If you have the main board installation guide it will list all
the ram types the main board supports, also listing the speeds and maximum size
for each slot. If you don't have the installation guide have two choices on
finding out what ram is installed in your computer, the easiest is to go to the
main board manufactures web site and search for the information on your main
board. Or you can open up your computer and look at the markings on the ram
itself. If you do open the case up remember
ESD will kill anything you touch if
you are not grounded.
With this information you can search the web for suppliers of third party memory.
They will have table that will list all the ram that matches the form and speed
you are looking for, just pick the size you want to upgrade to.
Channels
- When you buy memory you need to know if your motherboard has single, dual,
or triple channel memory. Also you will need to know the minimum speed and the
maximum speed that the motherboard will support. You need to consider that if
the motherboard supports single channel memory then the speed published will be
the base speed of the memory.
However if you have dual channel memory you would have to divide the
published speed in half to get the base memory speed that the motherboard will
support. That is say your motherboard will support dual channel memory at 400,
800, or 1066. You would either by the memory as a set of two modules or find
single modules. If you are searching for single modules you would divide the
speed of the memory in half to find a single module such as if you had 800 MHz
memory and wanted to replace one then you would search for 400 MHz DDR 2 memory.
If you have DDR3 which is triple channel memory then to find the base memory
speed you would divide the memory speed by 3 such as your computer has DDR 3
and it is 1333 the base memory speed would be 444 MHz.
Quality - Quality counts. Remember buy cheap get cheap. You are doing this
yourself to save money but doing something twice costs twice as much.
Did you know that if you install memory that has a FSB of say 800 MHz that your processor will run slower than if you installed say 1066 MHz memory?
I have written a six part e-course on overclocking your computer and memory is one factor in this process. Sign up for the e-course today!
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with any publication not all information is available due to space, time, or
subject constraints.
If you have a question that you did not find the answer
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