slow $378 wal-mart ze2308wm special, memory upgrade??

SERprise

New Member
Hi, I am one of those who managed to get one of those Black Friday specials, but that thing is soooo slow. It is definately worth the money and everything, I mean I don't plan on playing any games or anything, I have my PC for that. To be honest though, the 1ghz pentium notebook(Prostar) this HP is replacing is just as fast. I actually went and downloaded all of the drivers from HP's site, and I am going to reinstall XP home(a microsoft CD, not HP's with all of that proprietary software on it). I am about to reinstall XP now and install nothing but the drivers, firefox, and my copy of office XP. I know that will definately speed it up, but I know 256 megs of ram just wont cut it for me with XP. I am wanting to upgrade it to 1 gig, would I be better off getting 2 512 chips or a single 1 gig chip?? I know it is cheaper to get a couple 512 chips but would that drain my battery having to run 2 chips instead of one or does it not matter??? Another thing is.. I did some research on the mobile 2800+ sempron it comes with and the processor is capable of DDR400, so why doesn't it have it?? It comes with a single 256mb DDR333 chip. I went in to the bios and it doesn't even have an option(any options actually.. just boot sequence really) to switch it to run at DDR400 speeds? If I just order some PC3200, will it actually run at 400?? Will the motherboard automatically detect it or is the motherboard set to 333 and nothing else?? I wouldnt mind the extra .1 volt power needed if it can run at 400, that is definately worth letting my battery die a little faster, but if it isn't possible I don't want to waste the extra $ and I will just get some more pc2700 and keep it at 333.. I am totally clueless about laptops, so ANY help would be appreciated, feel free to talk to me like I am a newb, because basically that is what I am in this area.

-Cory


(It has ATI's XPRESS 200m video, 2800+ mobile Sempron, 1x256MB DDR333 chip, I think the 200M is shared memory too, so really I am barely running with more than 200 megs of ram, definately bottlenecking the laptop)
 
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Its most likely th memory, i got a similar deal at staples. Most likely the laptop only supports DDR333, so if tou got a DDR400 chip, it will run at DDR333.
 
btw, how do I tell the difference between DDR and DDR2 so I know what to order?? They look the same according to Newegg's pictures ;) I assume it is regular DDR in my notebook, cause if I remember right AMD doesn't support it yet?? I just want to be absolutely positive before droppin $100. I mean, they look the same, and they are both 200 pin
 
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well I ended up ordering a PQI PC3200 1GB chip from newegg, it was only a little more than the PC2700 chips I was thinking about getting. I will only buy Corsair, PQI, OCZ, or similar brand... I try to stay away from the really cheap ones just because I am paranoid, I know PQI is an inexpensive one but they are one of the best IMO.. They actually outmatch Corsairs Value Select in a lot of benchmarks so I like em. I actually have a 2GB dual channel kit of PQI Turbo in my PC and I am totally happy. The reason I ordered the DDR400 is because with that few extra dollars, there is the "chance" that it will run at 400mhz. I mean AMD's cpu's have internal memory controllers right?? I am hoping even the mobile semprons are onboard like my A64... we'll see. Either way, worst case scenario is that I'll be able warn others that it will NOT work on the HP ze2000 series and it will just continue to operate at 333, either way it will be a good upgrade for me even if it only runs at 333. If it does work however, there will be a lot of happy people when I spread the news after being the test dummy
 
kof2000 said:
i was say it probably is ddr2700 rather than pc3200

don't say that :( lol I want it to support pc3200 :D

there are a few laptops that end up supporting ddr400 with semprons, but it is kinda hit or miss with the models depending on the motherboards from what I read.. I am just hoping the ze2308wm is one of those hits and it ends up supporting it.. My fingers are crossed and I will be sure to let you know if it does or doesn't.. If it does I'll create a new thread letting people know it does, if not, well... I'll just update this one :( I hope it all works out though.. I'll be running memtest to see what it registers as as soon as I have it delivered and get it installed.
 
HA! IT WORKED!

I bought a 1GB pc3200 of PQI PowerMemory for it with the hopes of it running at 400Mhz.. Well it does :) I verified it in memtest even :D , glad I splurged with the hopes of the 400mhz. memtest shows my old pc2700 chip at 159mhz and the new chip is verified at 199 :eek: that's an 80mhz increase when you factor in the ddr.. I'm stoked. I can actually run CS:S on this thing now. I brought a new life to this $378 wal-mart special. In the end I have a total of $488($110 with coupon from newegg for the ram) in to this notebook and it is as good as a lot of the higher end ones. No 64 bit support but I don't need that, all I really do is use this for passing time at school in between classes while doing homework or playing some CS:S. Before it ran pretty slow but it is flawless now. Another good thing to do if you own an HP ze2308 is reinstall windows on it(reformat HD) and install NO software, just use the driver CD and install those. It speeds your notebook up a LOT without all of those files you don't use. I bet it won't really matter though if you upgrade your ram, make sure you do that atleast.
 
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