To upgrade laptop Memory or not?

paint

Hi there,

I'm hoping for a little advice as to whether it will be worth my while upgrading from 512 MB ram to 1024MB (at a cost of about £65), given the constraints of my machine. Operating system running is windows XP by the way.

The problem I have is that applications like Windows Movie Maker and Adobe Photoshop tend to make the machine run slowly/occasionally 'hang'. My initial thought was to upgrade the memory, but then I thought this might just be an expensive waste of time given that the real constraint on performance might be something else - possibly the CPU and/or graphics etc.

Please help! Some hardware details below.

:beer:

Computer Manufacturer
Sony
Computer Model
VAIO PCG-FR415B
CPU Manufacturer
GenuineIntel
CPU Family
Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.80GHz
CPU Speed
2791 MHz
Front-Side Bus Speed
100 MHz
Currently Installed Memory
512 MB
Maximum Memory Capacity
1024MB

intel

Bung some more RAM in as image programs suck the life out
of Memory it will stop or slow yer machine as youv'e said.

I had the exact same prob.. installed ram and Voila problemo solved.

BenL

£65 seems ok for laptop memory. Is ot branded (crucial etc) or value unbranded?

The unbranded stuff could cause memory leaks and have an adverse effect on the comp.

For applications like you are using a desktop machine with a fully blown processor (not celeron/sempron) would be better overall.

Ben

paint

Thanks guys - wow what a quick response! The memory I'm looking at is this. Does this look ok?

Unortunately I have a small one bed flat so no room for a desktop - am just wondering how best to proceed given constraints of size and also budget! Thanks again chaps.

intel

Just make sure you can use non-ecc chips otherwise its fine.

http://www.misco.co.uk/productinformation/~75136~/512MB%20DDR266%20PC2100%20SO%20DIMM.htm

May be worth a look :beer:

Genghis

I'd recommend Crucial... £38.76 inc VAT and free shipping.

Not sure if the link works.. but try:
http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/listparts.asp?Mfr%2BProductline=Sony%2BVAIO+PCG-F%2FFR%2FFRV+Models&mfr=Sony&tabid=AM&model=VAIO+PCG-FR415B&submit=Go

paint

Genghis wrote:

I'd recommend Crucial... £38.76 inc VAT and free shipping.

Not sure if the link works.. but try:
http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/listparts.asp?Mfr%2BProductline=Sony%2BVAIO+PCG-F%2FFR%2FFRV+Models&mfr=Sony&tabid=AM&model=VAIO+PCG-FR415B&submit=Go

Crucial was the company I was looking at to buy it from. Thanks for the recommendation as I've not used this seller before.

John_Gray

The unbranded stuff could cause memory leaks and have an adverse effect on the comp.

"Memory leaks" are caused by programs not correctly releasing virtual memory that they have acquired. So they gradually use up more and more virtual memory. The term has nothing whatever to do with the physical memory that gets put into laptops.

"Unbranded memory" might well be perfectly OK, but I agree that it would be sensible to go for something like Crucial.

John