Basic question about RAM

S

sizk

New Member
A friend just gave me an old laptop using sticks of 256 MB PC2100 133 MHz memory. I want to replace those with 512 MB ones which only exist at 266 Mhz. Can I do that?
 
sizk said:
A friend just gave me an old laptop using sticks of 256 MB PC2100 133 MHz memory. I want to replace those with 512 MB ones which only exist at 266 Mhz. Can I do that?
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most likely, however, it doesn't rely on what type/speed the RAM it has now is, it matters what the motherboard supports. If you can find the name/model of the motherboard somewhere, and just punch it into google, you've got a good chance of finding out what you need to know. :)
 
If the board can support that much RAM then yea, it will be fine. If it cannot handle 266MHz RAM it knocks it down to the highest one it can support, which will probably be 133MHz, but it will still be 512MB
 
Aastii said:
If the board can support that much RAM then yea, it will be fine. If it cannot handle 266MHz RAM it knocks it down to the highest one it can support, which will probably be 133MHz, but it will still be 512MB
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Yeah, however, i just gutted a, and found that it worked much more efficiently with 1GB of 667mhz than with 1GB of 800mhz... I think the step-down might take a little extra work? not sure...
 
pfig88 said:
most likely, however, it doesn't rely on what type/speed the RAM it has now is, it matters what the motherboard supports. If you can find the name/model of the motherboard somewhere, and just punch it into google, you've got a good chance of finding out what you need to know. :)
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Upgrade possible :)
Thanks for the input!
 
pfig88 said:
Yeah, however, i just gutted a, and found that it worked much more efficiently with 1GB of 667mhz than with 1GB of 800mhz... I think the step-down might take a little extra work? not sure...
Click to expand...

I didn't even know that they made 800MHz laptop RAM, gaming laptops generally have 667.

The only possible idea i have is that maybe because the voltages are different on 800MHz and 667MHz stepping the voltage down, aswell as clock, to make it the equivalent of 667, so because it is designed to work at i think it is 2.4V and is put to a lower one it may not be at it's full potential, even though it obviously isn't because it is stepped down, that step down could make it even worse.

That or because the RAM has to be made slower the nb will have to be slowed too and that may drop the speeds of the system even lower because CPU, RAM and sb transfers will be slowed.
 
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