Laptop Ram upgrade help

dx052

I have a Dell D630 laptop, running windows 7 32bit. I am after finding the cheapest place where I can get ram online or maybe on the high street if possible. I went to crucial dot com to see how much memory capacity I can upgrade to and it says 8gig ddr2, so I am assuming that's two banks of 4 gig? I also read somewhere that its best to run the operating system on 64bit to get the best from my system, is this correct? I watch heaps of TV & Youtube etc these days and need it to be at its best performance.

macman

32 bit OS's will only recognise 4GB of RAM anyway.
You do not need 8GB of RAM to watch a YouTube stream, you simply need a reasonably fast internet connection-that's the limiting factor. If you already have 4GB under W7, that is enough.

dx052

I only have 2gig ram at the moment. I also watch a lot of football online which seems to need a lot more juice. My internet connection is pretty good, I have Virgin 30gig or something like that!

Weird_Nev

2Gb Ram isn't ideal, but as said, a 32Bit OS can only address 4Gb (and doesn't even use all of that).
It WON'T be what's limiting your viewing experience. that's connection and OS bloat dependant, not RAM dependant.

That said, I'd probably upgrade to 4Gb with the cheapest upgrade option. That's just for general performance though. Ensure you DO have 2 memory slots, and be aware you may have to throw away memory in the computer if both slots are full (2x1Gb DIMMS already in place for example)

Check for bloated/uneeded "antivirus" software, spyware and adware. It's those kinds of programmes that really hurt performance.

closed

more ram doesn't equal more juice, and more ram isn't going have any effect on youtube or tv.

most of the ram in todays overspecified machines is sat there doing very little or nothing of benefit - see your commit charge in task manager.