Can an Asus 800E Deluxe handle pc3200 400 speed?

[SorrowsEnd]

Hello folks!

I know quite a few of you will want to make fun of me for this, but alas I'm still learning.

Over the last few months I've been learning more about computer hardware. My girlfriend has even less technical knowledge than myself and asked for my help.

We play alot of World of Warcraft, she only has a pc for online gaming. She has 512 megs ram which really isn't cutting it. I have a 1 gig kit (2x 512 sticks) of Patriot pc3200 400 speed ram which I removed for my alienware system when I upgraded a 2 gig kit.

Does anyone know if this ram would be compatible with her motherboard? It is an Asus 800E-Deluxe.

Sorry for the noob question I just don't want to destroy her system while trying to help.

Thank you kindly

 

[Alaric360]

Hi. Since you are admittedly new to this, I'll take you through the process I followed to come up with your answer:

I don't know much about that board: I didn't know whether it was an Intel or an AMD(Pretty much irrelevant for your question).
First things first, I went to Asus.com and searched for '800E-Deluxe' . 0 Rows returned. (The board is old enough that it is no longer in their system)

So I did a yahoo search for the model (Vendor and model number... 'Asus 800E-Deluxe') and found a forum entry on ARSTechnica about an 'Asus P4P 800-Deluxe' for sale. What I was really looking for was a documentation of the technical specs, but none of them came up in the first few listings, so I tried a new search. (But, I DID learn that it is a Pentium 4 Prescott board. ...That let's me make a more specific search later on) I searched for '800-E Deluxe PC3200' and found a listing at newegg.com. Someone had bought some PC3200 RAM and left a response that said (paraphrase) 'Works great in an Asus P4P 800E-Deluxe.' ...So I had the first indication that I might be able to answer your question with a 'Yes' but I didn't want to just take it on some random tech-nerd's word. So....google searched 'Asus P4P 800-E Deluxe'.' : First hit was shopping.lycos.co.uk... ...Went there, and there's a link to 'Technical Details' Went down to 'Memory' tab and found out that this board will support PC2100, PC2700, and PC3200 RAM. So the answer to your question is YES, it will work and NO, you won't break her board (provided you install it correctly.) ...I hope that helps. Next time you have a question of this nature (The technical specs of a mobo should *ALWAYS* tell what type of RAM it supports) simply look the board's model # up on the manufacturer's website (Try the most authoritative source first.) ...If you can't find the information there, usually that means that the manufacturer doesn't support the board anymore and you're on your own to find a listing of the technical specs. What you DON'T want to do is take it on the word of some random person. Places like shopping.yahoo and shopping.lycos pull their technical specs straight from the manufacturer. The same cannot be said of listings on Ebay(simplest example.) While you're doing your search, you'll learn a little bit more about the board, and that'll let you constrict your search string. That'll make your results a bit more condensed, and will make it easier to find what you're looking for. Hope that helps (btw, took longer to write this than it did to find your answer.....took like 45 seconds or so)

 

[SorrowsEnd]

Thank you very much for explaining where you got the information from.

I had tried the google search before posting my inital questions. And yes I found that same lycos sale for the board. That is where I ran into the roadblock, wasn't sure where to get the information I needed.

I appreciate you explaining that to me.

As for correctly installing the ram that isn't a problem. I have been adding/removing hardware for a few years but always have had more tech savvy friends pick out the parts for me *blush*. Just recently i've been trying to increase my own personal knowledge to make informed choices on parts and not just rely on "what Bob likes".

Thanks again for the help. I'm going to ninja-swap the ram sometime when shes at work and not tell her. =)