RAM Question

J

Jim Bond

New Member
Hi everybody. I recently purchased an HP Pavillion (Intel Core 2 [email protected] ghz, 2 gigs of ram, XP pro).

I am expecting my Vista upgrade in the mail soon and I plan to upgrade to the full 4mb of RAM.

How can I make sure the RAM I buy doesn't clash with my computer? Also, is it possible that 2 different types of RAM would clash?

Thanks.

PS I could also use some RAM recommendations. I use my computer for making music...
 
What model Pavillion is that? That will help when the specifications are looked over as to what memory is supported. Generally mixing different types of memory is the "recipe for disaster". You want to match the memory as close as possible by first reviewing the system specifications and trying to stay with the same latency.

Faster installed on the first channel can work at times by simply backclocking to the slower memory's speed. But you won't want memory with 5-5-5-12 timings mixed with 3-3-3-8 timings seen on one or more additional dimms installed. 2gb itself is plenty for most gaming let alone multimedia systems.
 
The only I will be considering 4gb of ram is when getting into a board that runs 2gb dimms; one for each channel. For the current lot of 32bit apps and games a good pair of 1gb dimms for dual channel configuration will suffice unless you are planning to run large CAD and graphics design softwares. On a prebuilt system like HP, or Dell where your options are limited in many ways you wouldn't see real performance gain for the most part.
 
Between the upgrade to Vista (which I heard is ram intensive by itself) and this new orchestra sampler/vst program which is EXTREMELY RAM intensive I thought I would upgrade. I don't mind paying for it, even if the actual improvement isn't much.

I have the HP Pavilion d4790y...
 
I have 2 RAM slots left. Where should I go to find out which RAM is compatible with my PC? I don't want to buy from HP, they seem a little overpriced...
 
Your system will run on either PC4200 533mhz or upto 4gb of PC5300 DDR2 667mhz memory. If you already have 2gb of DDR2 667 installed by HP you would match that by using a comparison chart seen at different sites that sell HP memory specifically. A guide on selecting HP memory is seen at http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=30069&rl=1

For any custom build going to a vendor like newegg, TigerDirect, mwave, or one of several others would give you price and brand options. But without knowing if you have an Asus board installed and what model it is makes it difficult to select the correct memory from independent sources. Different timings when adding a different make or type of memory can see hardware conflicts rather fast. You want to match the original memory to see the best results.
 
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