how do I know what ram I need?
 

I already have 768MB in my PC right now, now all I really want is a stick of 256, but how will I know what kind will work best with my PC? should I just open it and buy the same brand? isnt their different PIN numbers? and PC numbers?

the same brand and speed.

The speed will come in the format of something like 2100, 2700, 3200, 4200 etc your RAM should have a label on it telling you this.

what if I can no longer find the same brand?

the store I bought my previous ram before (took a lucky guess on what ram I needed, didnt know shit, luckily is worked surprisinly good) is longer there, and i only know of best buy and they sell "k-byte", the RAM that i bought was "AZENRAM 512MB DDR PC 270"

I cant get anything higher than 270?

your mobo wont like your ram being different speeds. It would prolly make a beeping noise and refuse to boot should you have a stick of 2700 and a stick of 3200.

Buck you need to look inside the case so you know how many sticks of memory you can use on your motherboard. If you have empty memory slots do they look like the occupied slots or are they bigger. It sounds like you have a 256m and a 512m currently so you might have to buy another 512m and replace the 256m to get to 1g.

cool:

You could do all that or just check this website...

http://www.crucial.com/store/listmfgr.asp?cat=RAM

[quote="$p!k3":bf7a1]You could do all that or just check this website...

[url="http://www.crucial.com/store/listmfgr.asp?cat=RAM"]http://www.crucial.com/store/listmfgr.asp?cat=RAM[/url][/quote:bf7a1]

wow thanks, it says it recommends

512MB—CT6464Z40B
DDR PC3200
CL=3
NON-ECC

so, taking into consideration to what johnj said, will I have to reaplce my 256mb ram stick? or can I even use the stick the site suggested?

it can hold 3 sticks,r ight now i have a 256 and a 512 in there

doesnt really matter what speed you get, just buy the same brand. if you have PC2700 and buy a stick of PC3200, it will run at PC2700 but not at its speed because it runs at the lowest speed of whatever stick is in there. it wont fuck it up at all, just wont run at the highest speed unless you have that in there already.

ok, say I bought a stick of 256 PC 2700, and now I have a gig in of ram in there, will there be a significant difference in speed?

From what ive read in this thread. IT looks as if you have 768MB of PC2700. You should purchase another stick of 256 of PC2700 and then it will give you 1024MB of PC2700, or 1 Gig.

I have never really tried to stay with the same brand as my other ram when purchasing a new stick, and ive never had a problem.

No, I doubt you will be able to see any noticible difference. Your already running seven hundred and change. That little bit more you wont see any difference as far as speed is concerned. If you run a lot of the newer games you might see them load a little faster and run a little smoother because most games load into the memory and get the infomation from there. So the more you have the better.

But for general operation of the computer you already have more then is required to run the box.

If you have three diffrent sticks of ram that add up to 1024 it wont be as fast as say and acual one stick gig of ram becuase the CPU needs to load from thoose three sperate sticks.

[quote="$p!k3":49178]If you have three diffrent sticks of ram that add up to 1024 it wont be as fast as say and acual one stick gig of ram becuase the CPU needs to load from thoose three sperate sticks.[/quote:49178]
More that it's not running in dual channel than that.

it doesnt have to be the same brand.