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I'm getting new RAM, need some suggestions

W

Woolong

Member
I need more RAM for my games. 512 has become the minimum, so it just doesn't cut it anymore; I require more. My Motherboard can support up to 3 gigs, but I need to know what the best kind of DDR PC3200 RAM is. More details in my post on the fourth page.

Thank you.
 
if you have a DVD R drive then copy old save game files to your disk.... then delete the games in question......

Your last 1.5 gigs is probably also being used partly by the swap file so filling it up totally is not really recommended!
 
Yeah, I don't have a DVD-R. This computer's 3 years old, which is why I'm going to build a new one eventually. As for not filling the last 1.5, I know I shouldn't, because my computer is already lagging like hell since I installed GTA SA.I had over 5 gigs before that. Now I only have this.

But what's the swap file?
 
I'd get an 80gig PATA hard drive, and an external USB hard drive enclosure. You can get an 80gig Western digital drive for like $50, and an enclosure for like $20. If your current computer has SATA however, I would just go ahead and get a 250gb SATA drive.
 
http://www.ccleaner.com/

Get a bit. Just review the list before you OK it, don't want to delete an important programs files on accident (only case I know is some noob deleted his java files he programmed or something).

// Oh, and you will want to purge IE's temporary internet files manually, because the enormous amount of files can make this take forever.
 
I would buy 2 hard drives from the hot deals forums. Use one for storage and game installs and then get another from there when it comes time to build your new system.
 
So I've decided out two of them. I'm left with Decisions 3 or 4, and I'm not sure what to do. I'm not getting 2 internal hard drives, it's out of the question. Too expensive right now. I'm either going to buy my next computer's hard drive now and then format it when I'm going to turn it into my main hard drive, or I'm going to get an external hard drive and then just use that until the time comes.

Still, I can't decide. If I buy my 250 gig hard drive now, I'll have ample space, but I might get shafted in the end if my computer's current hard drive is PATA and my newer one would run better with SATA. Though, if I wanted to use my current hard drive, it better be SATA for my sake. I don't know what it is, though. Can anyone tell me how to check this?

On the other hand, if I buy the external hard drive, I can't see myself using it when I get my new computer. I'd have 3 hard drives to work with, and I really don't need THAT much space. Especially considering for the external to be worth it I'd have to get a 50+ gig one. Though, if I do, and it connects as fast as an internal hard drive (even though it's through USB) I could just use that and format my old hard drive, then sell it all to one of my friends.

Speaking of formatting hard drives, how exactly is it done? And how can things be recovered from it? Mainly because I've got some movies on here, and I don't want someone to go and undelete it, landing my ass MPAA'D.

I heard somewhere that the usual amount of wipes to completely erase all data from a hard drive so that it can't be brought back is 7. Is that true?

Thank you.
 
Another thing. I have 3 slots for RAM, and I have 2 256 RAM cards in there, I think they're DDR. My brother put in his two DDR 512 sticks in after taking out my 256 sticks and none of my games ran. He also ran them overclocked at about 3 ghz, I think he said. Could the overclocking be the reason why they didn't work in my computer? Because if it was, I was thinking of buying some RAM along with my haard drive (be it external or internal) because I plan on getting a few games, plus HL2 would run so much better with them.

Thanks again.
 
What motherboard do you have? Need to know that before either your ram or the SATA question can be answered. LOL and he couldn't have overclocked his ram to 3ghz that for sure.
 
Ok. I have an ASUS A7N8X Deluxe motherboard.

As for my brother overclocking his RAM, I don't think it was that. I think he just overclocked something else, and the RAM was used to that.... Or he overclocked his RAM to some other small number. I can't really remember; He told me this over 4 months ago when he put his graphics card into my computer.
 
The motherboard has SATA, and uses DDR memory. I'd go ahead with a nice big SATA hard drive that you can use with your next build.
 
Ok then, I guess I'll get that 250 gig SATA hard drive now. Where should I get it? God knows Best Buy is the wrost place to buy it, plus they'll probably make me pay an extra 50 bucks for their stupid Geek Squad to install it, and I'm not going to do that. I'll install it myself.

And if I were to get some more RAM, what would be the best bet for that? I don't know what RAM I have now, other than it's 256. I think it's DDR. How can I check this?

PS: I'm not about to Download more RAM.
 
Check newegg.com and zipzoomfly.com, see which one has the better price on a hard drive. You have DDR memory, I checked the specs of your motherboard, it supports PC3200 DDR.
 
Ok then. I was browsing Newegg and I came across this hard drive. It's nice and big and it shouldn't be slow, especially based on buyer ratings. I think it could go well, and it's SATA, what I need. Is it a good one?

As for RAM, I was thinking of this. It seems like it should run well with my coimputer, again, based off of buyer ratings.But still, I'd like some comments on it.

I never realized RAM was so damn expensive... Jesus. Some of the RAM listed is even more expensive than the Hard drive I'm considering!
 
First, I recommend JDiskReporter Its a Java based graphical tool that analyzes your hard drive to find large files. You may have a number of large files taking up space that you aren't aware of. You can probably clear up a few gigs this way. Second, if you don't feel comfortable opening your computer and adding a hard drive (or if you have trouble distinguishing between PATA and SATA or don't know the difference) why not just get an external drive and move all of your data to that? USB hard drives are more expensive, but you can get an enclosure relatively cheaply and throw any PATA el cheapo flavor of the week in there. (I recommend implementing some type of backup solution for any data that you deem important, even if it is just manually copying files to DVD's once a month.)
 
I have opened my computer up before to clean it up inside (Gets so damn dusty in there...) but I've never actually installed anything. However, my dad can help me with that. He owns arcade games, so he knows how to mount and connect wiring and things like that.

I did get the JDiskReporter, though. Scanning right now.

Edit: Freed up 4.5 gigs of space. Good, but I'm still going to need that new internal. Porn, you know. Lots of it.

<_<
 
I would second the "buy an internal drive and an external enclosure" advice.

This was you are incredibly versatile, you can hook up internally or externally as needed. Plus buying a branded external drive will cost you. Manufacturers add significantly more margin to the external drives compared to internal drives.

External drives are fast enough to stream from, yes. Decent External enclosures can be had for the $30-40 range, so they are not a huge cost adder in most cases. Keep an eye on the Hot Deals forum, as you will occasionally find pretty big drives at LOW prices. I got my last 160 gig for $50 after rebate, then later there was a 200 gig for $40 after rebate, for example.

Personally, I don't see a reason to go with either SATA or PATA right now, get whichever is cheaper. The interface speeds are not a factor in overall drive speed. SATA gives some relatively negligible performance advantages with command queueing, but they are not significant at all really.
 
An internal Hard drive with an external case. Never heard of that before. Link?

But anyway, I'm not really sure how to know how expensive a hard drive should or should not be. Same thing with RAM. How can I tell I'm getting a good product for my money?

Thanks. And I am referring to my previously posted RAM and HDD.
 
Originally posted by: Woolong
An internal Hard drive with an external case. Never heard of that before. Link?
Click to expand...

http://www.coolerguys.com/hadren.html

or

http://www.newegg.com/ProductSort/SubCategory.asp?SubCategory=92

But anyway, I'm not really sure how to know how expensive a hard drive should or should not be. Same thing with RAM. How can I tell I'm getting a good product for my money?

Thanks. And I am referring to my previously posted RAM and HDD.
Click to expand...

For Hard drives, warantee and past reliability performance are about all you can go on. I don't want to give too much info because I work for a major HD manufacturer and my views are obviously biased. Mostly price is tied to size, not quality. Hard drive reliability is hit or miss. Every manufacturer has it's share of returned drives. But I'd be surprised if any manufacturer has >1% return rate on any modern IDE drive.

As for RAM The Corsair Value Select works, but has been spotty in terms of compatibility. Generally you can get things compatible, but some boards have had some issues with the Corsair VS and may require some BIOS tweaking to get it working right. I don't know that I've heard of issues with other brands, though I've personally had 3 sticks of Kingmax that didn't perform to specs and they were impossible to deal with in terms of heir 'lifetime warantee'

Crucial is pretty much the gold standard of compatibility, I've used Patriot, OCZ and Mushkin without issue. Most of the very high cost RAM is designed for people wanting to eek out every last bit of performance from their system and they are paying prices up to double what normal RAM costs in order to get a 5% performance increase. Most people are fine with just regular PC3200.
 
So basically, the hard drive I picked is as good a bet as any that I could get? It's 300 gigs and if it runs I'll be happy. Plus the warranty would probably suffice with what might or might not go wrong. Or should I get the extended warrantee? As for the encolsure, would my selection be good for my selected hard drive? All I did was match up the size I saw in both descriptions, 3.5". I don't know if that's wrong, but that's why I'm asking.

As for RAM, I went and looked at some Crucial RAM. This Seemed like the best for what I need. Though, it is 100 bucks.

Well, I guess that's the price I pay for wanting a gig of RAM. Oh well.
 
Make sure the 'Internal interface' of the enclosure matches with the drive you buy (if you buy a SATA drive, you need an enclosure that works with SATA).

Most external enclosures, including the one you linked to, are for PATA. You can see in the 2nd picture that the connector is clearly a PATA connector.

Yes, standard desktop drives are 3.5" drives. 2.5" drives are notebook drives.

As for RAM, in most computers RAM can be used in 'dual channel' which means it will be able to access 2 sticks quicker than 1 stick. The difference in performance is not huge, but the price of 2x512MB sticks is generally very close to the price of 1x1GB stick, so it's essentially a small amount of 'free' performance. The difference is usually more significant on Intel platforms than AMD platforms. You don't mention your MB/CPU, but if your board is capable of utilizing dual channel RAM, I'd get 2 512MB stick instead of 1x1GB.

You can see in this listing: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi...Price=&SubCategory=147&Submit=Property

There are many options under $100. Crucial generally overrates there memory, so they are generally the most compatible, but personally I've never used Crucial because their prices are higher. Patriot, Mushkin, Twinmos, and OCZ are very popular brands that people in the forum all have used a lot. Corsair other than the Value Select also has a good rep, but the Value Select specifically has seen some issues. I've personally used the 2x512 kits by Mushkin and Twinmos on that page linked there. And I use a 2x1GB Patriot kit in my primary system at home right now.

Also, if your current system is old, it may not support 1GB sticks. It might not support dual channel, but you should still get 2 sticks in the event that you upgrade in the futureyou can utilize dual channel capabilities. If you want Crucial dual channel, I think they don't specifically sell 2x512 kits, but buying 2 sticks of 512 individually will get you the same results.

You should ahve some type of DDR unless your system is really really old (RDRAM or PC100 or PC133) or a pretty new Intel platform (DDR2). You can tell by downloading a program like Sisoft sandra or Lavalys Everest Home Edition. These will analyze your hardware, including your RAM type. For exmaple in Everest, you can go to motherboard and on my old machine here at work I get this information about my RAM ("Memory bus properties")
Bus type: SDR SDRAM (will read DDR SDRAM if you have DDR, this computer is using PC133)
Bus width: 64-bit (will read 128 bit if you are currently using dual channel)
Real Clock: 133 MHz
Effective Clock: 133 MHz (effective clock will be double the real clock for DDR)
Bandwidth: 1067 MB/sec (this is what denotes the PCrating on DDR, PC3200 is 3200 MB/sec in single channel, PC2700 is 2700 MB/sec, etc...)

PC3200 is completely backwards compatible with PC2700 or PC2100 or PC1600 DDR RAM. There is no reason to buy PC2100 RAM at this point because PC3200 is just as cheap (or cheaper) and allows you to upgrade your motherboard in the future without concern of buying new RAM.

Also under "Chipset" Everest will tell you what size and type modules are installed in your system at present. This machine says:
DRAM Slot #1: 256MB (SDRAM)
DRAM Slot #2: 256MB (SDRAM)
 
Ok, I'm kinda taking in an overload over here. I understand that my external enclosure is a PATA and I have an SATA Hard drive I'm getting, but the RAM... Wow. Lots of information.

Right now I have an ASUS A7N8X Deluxe Mobo, an AMD Athlon XP 3000+ CPU, and 512 RAM, 2 256 sticks. My brother tried putting in his 512 sticks into my computer but they didn't run too well, for some reason. All I know is they had a higher voltage than my power source can put out running through them for the year they were in his computer. I don't know if that had something to do with it, but maybe.

I'm doing this because I'm getting F.E.A.R. when it comes out, along with Black and White 2. I'd also like Half Life 2 to stop lagging to hell when I have a zombie free for all in Garry's Mod.

I'm going to build a new computer soon, hopefully some time after christmas but before the new year. My current computer is 3 years old. Still runs well and it's not a bad computer, it's just old, and I want to see if I can do something like this.

I could build complex lego castles when I was 5, I should be able to build a high end gaming computer. only problem is, if I screwed up the castle, I'd be out a few dollars worth of plastic if they broke. If I screw up here, I'm blowing a few thousand.
 
Bump again for help.

I wanna be 100% certain of this before I buy. Plus my Dad isn't here for me to use his paypal account or his mastercard...

<_<
 
Originally posted by: Woolong
Right now I have an ASUS A7N8X Deluxe Mobo, an AMD Athlon XP 3000+ CPU, and 512 RAM, 2 256 sticks. My brother tried putting in his 512 sticks into my computer but they didn't run too well, for some reason. All I know is they had a higher voltage than my power source can put out running through them for the year they were in his computer. I don't know if that had something to do with it, but maybe.
Click to expand...

Then you can support dual channel memory and you will want PC3200. 2x512MB sticks should be the best choice for you.
 
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