Laptop ram? totally stumped

[SuperDuperMe]

hi all, my girlfriend currently has 1gb of ram in her lappy, its a advent 5421 and it is slow as anything as it is.

its a few years old and like i said is slow as anything, its running vista and iv been told that running vista with 1gb of ram is just asking for slow load up times, if i up this to 2gb will it make a decent difference?

i ask 2 gb as thats the max the laptop will take as it only has one slot with a maximum of 2gb.

if it will make a decent difference whats the best ram i can get for it with £20 (small budget i know but all i have to work with atm)

iv bene on a few sites like dr memory i think its called, and they offer 2bg for £18 i think it is, but it doesnt say which make it is or any other specs for it.

any help is great thanks.

 

[bkribbs]

See if this helps? http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.aspx?model=5421

 

[SuperDuperMe]

yeh that another site i was on, is it good memory and will it make a difference to speeds on her laptop?

EDIT: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/2G-2GB-PC2-53...erComponents_MemoryRAM_JN&hash=item483a2b718f

is this any good

(if i cant put ebay links in could someone tell me and i will get it down straight away)

 

[johnb35]

Besides adding memory, you may want to reinstall the OS as you said the laptop is a few years old and windows will get corrupted over time. I usually do fresh installs about once a year.

Vista will definately work better with 2gb of memory. Is it home basic or home premium?

 

[SuperDuperMe]

its home basic and she did a fresh install about 6 months ago

will any 2gb do or do you have to be particular like with desktop memory?

(will the ram in the ebay link be ok)

 

[johnb35]

Then if its home basic then adding another gig will do wonders. However, your ebay link is desktop memory and will not work for a laptop. Laptop memory is usally referred to as SO dimm's as in this link

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NEW-KINGSTON-...pt=UK_Computer_Memory_RAM&hash=item562e17f1eb

 

[SuperDuperMe]

ouch £50 is way over budget

http://www.mrmemory.co.uk/memory/models.asp

is this site legit as the momry i need is only £19

 

[johnb35]

It should be fine. I don't get any site ratings for the site advisor I use though.

 

[SuperDuperMe]

cool i geuss i will go for that

just another quick question, is vista or xp better for these older laptops as she wants her laptop to be quick and i was wondering wether it would be worth downgrading her OS to xp as iv heard it uses less ram and is quicker with smaller amounts of ram. (correct me if im wrong )

 

[bkribbs]

I would say XP would most likely be quicker. It's pretty snappy on my laptop (which is in my sig; its fairly outdated). But I could be wrong.

 

[johnb35]

In my opinion, XP would be better, if the laptop could be downgraded. You would need to make sure you can get all the xp drivers for the hardware installed. XP would definately be more snappy with 2gb of memory then vista with 2 gb.

 

[SuperDuperMe]

sounds like a bit of a ball ache.

what sort of performance upgrade (in percent if you have an idea) could i see with the extra gb of ram? (on vista not xp)

 

[johnb35]

I would probably still do a fresh install even with adding more ram to get the proper full effect of adding more ram. But I would say up to 50 percent faster with an added gig of ram.