Dell RAM usage

[swyncoop]

I have an older Dell Inspiron desktop PC that uses 400hz RAM that still works but has only 512MB RAM in it. I also have a Dell Dimension XPSGen4 Desktop PC that has bad motherboard and uses 533hz RAM. Both RAM boards appear the same except for the amount of memory and speed.

My questions is, can I use the 533hz RAM in the older PC that has only 400hz RAM? I will be removing all the 400hz RAM.

I believe all the RAM is SDRAM but not positive.

Thanks!

 

[Harvey]

I have an older Dell Inspiron desktop PC that uses 400hz RAM that still works but has only 512MB RAM in it. I also have a Dell Dimension XPSGen4 Desktop PC that has bad motherboard and uses 533hz RAM. Both RAM boards appear the same except for the amount of memory and speed.

My questions is, can I use the 533hz RAM in the older PC that has only 400hz RAM? I will be removing all the 400hz RAM.

I believe all the RAM is SDRAM but not positive.

Thanks!

If both machines use the same kind of RAM (probably DDR) and the same voltages, you can try the faster RAM in the slower machine. If it isn't compatible, it won't damage the RAM, but either it won't work, or it may run at the slower speed.

Go to the support page on Dell's site to find the kinds of RAM are compatible with your machine, or go to the site for any of the major RAM makers (Kingston, Patriot, etc.) and use their search system to find RAM that will work.

Unfortunately, I don't think you'll see much improvement in performance because, if you're running XP, 512 MB just isn't enough to run it well. It will work much better with 2 - 3 GB of RAM, especially if you also have onboard video, which uses some the available RAM.

Also working against you is the fact that older, slower RAM is more expensive than the faster RAM used in current designs. If you want better performance, a modest, new machine would give you a far better performance return on the investment investment.

 

[Charlie98]

Give it a try, you can't hurt anything (as long as it's the same RAM! I.E: DDR, DDR2, etc.)

FWIW, I have mismatched RAM in my Dell 5150 and it works fine. I think I have 2 or 3 sticks of 512MB and 1 stick of 1GB... I know the timings are not the same. I think it just defaults to the slowest one.

 

[xqzit]

I have an older Dell Inspiron desktop PC that uses 400hz RAM that still works but has only 512MB RAM in it. I also have a Dell Dimension XPSGen4 Desktop PC that has bad motherboard and uses 533hz RAM. Both RAM boards appear the same except for the amount of memory and speed.

My questions is, can I use the 533hz RAM in the older PC that has only 400hz RAM? I will be removing all the 400hz RAM.

I believe all the RAM is SDRAM but not positive.

Thanks!

Hello swyncoop,

The thing about 400MHz memory speed is, it can either be PC3200 400MHz -which is a DDR memory or it can be PC2-3200 400MHz - which is a DDR2 memory. As for 533MHz, it is a DDR2 memory. Sometimes the memory speed may be compatible but it may not recognize the memory as it can be of different size.

Consider if your inspiron desktop supports only 1GB of memory at max and it has 2 slots, so max per slot would be 512MB right? So if you install 1GB 533MHz memory your system will not recognize it as it has exceeded the max per slot quota.

So let me know either the model number of the Dell Inspiron desktop or the service tag?

BTW, Dell Dimension XPS Gen 4 supports a max memory of 4GB. It has 4 slots and max per slot is 1GB.

BR,
xqzit