Upgrading an older desktop - Dell Studio 540 - suggestions?

[skipsandwich]

Hi - I have a desktop I bought in 2009 that I'd like to keep using for at least a few more years. It works well enough overall for my needs, but the memory is only 4 GB and it's frequently sluggish and says it's running at more than 80%. It's a Dell Studio 540 running Windows 10 64bit. I've never upgraded any RAM before, so I'm a little nervous that I'll buy the wrong thing! Here's a few screenshots of my system info, if that helps:

(Images are not showing up for some reason when I preview the post, so if they don't work, here's a link to the album on imgur: http://imgur.com/a/6Lq8p/all )

I'd like to go up to 8 GB. Can anybody point me at the right RAM to buy? Please let me know if there's anything else about my setup that would be helpful to know. Thanks for any advice!

 

[DSzymborski]

RAM is generally a very easy upgrade. However, you're very likely not going to be able to use the 4 GB you already have - RAM of the same *model* from a different batch can occasionally be fussy and we're talking about matching an OEM's 7-year-old DDR2 RAM! To get to 8, your best bet will be to buy two identical 2x2 GB kits (2x4 wasn't yet popular in DDR2 days, so the ones out there are super expensive now).

Your motherboard can support 4x800 MHz DIMMs so two of something like this should work for your needs:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0011A4UZE/?tag=pcpapi-20

 

[hang-the-9]

These modules should be OK to use http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/compatible-upgrade-for/Dell/studio-540 . If you have two 2 gb sticks and a 64 bit operating system, you can get two of the 2 gig sticks there and be OK. If you have 4 1 gig sticks, you need to replaces yours totally.

Replacing the hard drive in that system is also a good idea as older drives tend to slow over time due to bad sectors developing and Windows having to mark them as bad and move around them. Sticking a 128 gb $50 solid state hard drive in the computer will speed it up quite a bit.