Worth upgrading the memory on a Wind?

[Viper GTS]

My brother needed a laptop for basic in class use and around the house. He will also be depending on it for ~6 months as his only PC (e-mail, web, basic picture management). He understands that this is not intended to be an only PC type of laptop, so I think it's well suited for his needs.

If it were mine I would have no hesitations upgrading the RAM (and voiding my warranty), but since it's not my money on the line I'm a little more cautious. I'm relatively confident in my ability to install and remove a DIMM without leaving any trace, but I'm still not sure it's worth the risk.

How much of a performance difference can I expect from another 1 GB of RAM? Would I see more benefit (from superfetch) if I put Vista or Windows 7 on it? All of my machines have 8 GB so I'm a little biased towards more. I'm also a little out of touch with "normal" PC's so 1 GB may not be as bad as I think it will be.

Viper GTS

 

[Pliablemoose]

Yes.

 

[Bateluer]

When I upgraded from 1GB to 2GB on my eeePC, I noticed that XP became much more responsive though I don't have any concrete numbers to back it up.

I'm not sure about the Wind, but upgrading the memory on my eee was a snap. Remove two screws, pop open the plastic cover, remove 1GB stick, insert 2GB stick, replace cover, replace screws, enter BIOS upon reboot to allow the Asus software to detect the RAM upgrade.

 

[Viper GTS]

The wind requires you to pull the entire back off, breaking a "Warranty Void If..." type sticker.

Unfortunately it arrived with vertical lines on the LCD - Almost like corrugated cardboard. They seem to come and go, sometimes better than others but it's never fully cleared up. I'll give it a day & if it's not fully cleared up it's going back for an exchange.

Viper GTS

 

[SpeedEng66]

I also upped my 1000 eee to 2 gigs
it's a hair faster on loadup on xp (only like 5-10 seconds difference)

but other than that once in xp evrything else (ie) does not open faster

one gig is fine for the eee on xp
I just like maxin everything out

 

[Viper GTS]

We're sending the Wind back due to screen issues anyway, so it's a non issue. Amazon was out of the $350 Wind so we jumped to the Samsung NC10. Upgrading the memory is no longer a problem since there's a nice easy flap to open, and no warranty voiding issues.



Viper GTS

 

[Inspector Jihad]

do all netbooks only have one slot for memory?

 

[Fayd]

Originally posted by: Inspector Jihad
do all netbooks only have one slot for memory?

yeah, pretty much.

 

[Fayd]

Originally posted by: SpeedEng66
I also upped my 1000 eee to 2 gigs
it's a hair faster on loadup on xp (only like 5-10 seconds difference)

but other than that once in xp evrything else (ie) does not open faster

one gig is fine for the eee on xp
I just like maxin everything out

well, XP doesnt do superfetch, so the advantage of more ram doesnt enter the equation until you run apps that benefit from more ram.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: Viper GTS
we jumped to the Samsung NC10. Upgrading the memory is no longer a problem since there's a nice easy flap to open, and no warranty voiding issues.

I've also heard the NC10 may be a better choice. I have a Wind, but bought it before the NC10 came out. The NC10 has better battery life, easy RAM upgrades and a better touchpad.