Please advise on ram upgrade

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Guest

Guest
Well I am planning to upgrade my ram but am a complete noob when it comes to hardware stuff.I have heard that you should be using same make and speed of ram stick if you are planning to add another stick for performance sake.I got the specs of my mobo after scanning with cpu-z,

http://img262.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cpuz1vo9.jpg

http://img169.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cpuz2uh6.jpg

http://img169.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cpuz3is8.jpg

http://img264.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cpuz4kv1.jpg

http://img264.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cpuz5pq7.jpg

From the looks of it I think the mobo does not support dual channeling (please correct me if I am wrong and shed some light on this on how to find if my mobo supports dual channeling).If so then would it advisable to have a 1gb ram stick with a 512 mb ram stick.Whats the performance loss going to be like.Should buying a ram with higher clock speeds cause system instability.Looking forward to replies.
Thanks in advance
 
Well I am planning to upgrade my ram but am a complete noob when it comes to hardware stuff.I have heard that you should be using same make and speed of ram stick if you are planning to add another stick for performance sake.I got the specs of my mobo after scanning with cpu-z,

http://img262.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cpuz1vo9.jpg

http://img169.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cpuz2uh6.jpg

http://img169.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cpuz3is8.jpg

http://img264.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cpuz4kv1.jpg

http://img264.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cpuz5pq7.jpg

From the looks of it I think the mobo does not support dual channeling (please correct me if I am wrong and shed some light on this on how to find if my mobo supports dual channeling).If so then would it advisable to have a 1gb ram stick with a 512 mb ram stick.Whats the performance loss going to be like.Should buying a ram with higher clock speeds cause system instability.Looking forward to replies.
Thanks in advance

There is no way of knowing if your MB supports dual channel with the CPUZ shots you are showing. List your system specs, (or machine model number if DELL, etc.). Currrently you have one 512MB DIMM of PC3200 400Mhz. in single channel. I have upgraded several systems like this by simply adding a second 512 DIMM to give an XP system 1 GB total. Probably the most effective upgrade you can do with an older DDR machine like you have,

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820141424
 
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Guest

Guest
Thank you badge for replying.Had network problem yesterday,hence the delay in replying.
Could you tell me how to list the system specs.As I have mentioned before I am a complete noob when it comes to hardware (I am trying to learn about it though).After having searched the forum before posting,I came across a post that mentioned CPU-Z for knowing your system specs,hence the above pics.
I would appreciate if you could tell me what information you would need in order to come to a good conclusion and I would REALLY appreciate if you could tell me how to get those information (hope i am not much of a trouble).
Would it be ok to add 1gb ram stick with the 512mb stick or would 1 gb suffice my needs like virtualization and playing the latest games(of course with the help of good gpu).Waiting for your reply
 
If you have a prebuilt computer from a builder like HP or DELL, just list the model number. That way we can look up the MB, CP and other components your system has. No way of knowing about dual channel or anything else about what your system can use to 'upgrade'. Many times it is not worth putting a lot of money into an older computer. So, $20 to double your system RAM would be an inexpensive way to improve system performance. Unless you game or run complicated software, 1 GB of RAM is enough if you are using Windows XP. See what I mean. We don't even know what operating system you are using?
 
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Guest

Guest
I am so sorry.How could I miss that.Well I am using windows xp service pack 3 with the latest updates.

The comp is not a prebuilt from a branded company.My friends helped in building the computer.I had no idea what I am getting myself into at that point of time (this is my first comp).Now when I look back,I just regret not knowing anything about computers.

As you can see from the pics that I have posted before the mother board,cp,ram all their specs and the manufacturers name are mentioned,which to the best of my knowledge are right(I compared the companies name with the bill that I have from the purchases).I hope this would be of some help to you and would like to apologize if I am too much of a trouble to you.

I would like to test different distros of Linux either by dual booting them or via virtualization and would like to play games on it.

Hope that the above information could of some help to you.Thank you dagger once again for your time and patience.
 
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Guest

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*Thank you badge once again for your time and patience.(deeply apologizing for the mistake done above)
 
Your chipset is the ATI Radeon Xpress 200. Ha, incredibally I worked on a computer a couple of weeks ago with the same ATI chipset. I instaled the exact RAM I suggested to upgrade to 1 GB from 512 MB and loaded up this latest ATI Radeon Xpress 200 8.8 chipset driver. This little 'upgrade' worked wonders on the machine.

http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx?p=xp/integrated-xp

The ATI Radeon Xpress 200 chipset does not support dual channel memory.