How easy is it to put more RAM memory in a computer?

soon2bjobless

I have aquired an old computer (rescued it from someone putting it out for the bucket!!!!)

Its Windows ME and only has 64mb of RAM so its painfully slow.

Is is possible to put more RAM in? how much would it cost and does anyone know of a site on the net where it shows you how to do it step-by-step?

TIA.

HLK

You could look here .. http://www.pcnineoneone.com/howto/moreram1.html

or here... http://www.cyberwalker.net/faqs/how-tos/ram-upgrade-faqs.html

or just google 'adding ram to pc'

Debt_Free_Chick

To find out exactly which memory module to buy go to Crucial and run the Scan My System. It will tell you exactly what to buy and they have keen prices and excellent service.

HTH

urbanite

You will need to purchase SD Ram
Open the case and look for a card like this

You will prolly have to look at the existing Ram to see if it is PC100 or PC133
This type of Ram is now pretty obsolete, so you may have trouble finding some new - get some from Ebay.

128MB should cost you around £10

The Ram is held in place by little plastic clips on the motherboard
Push the clips away from the Ram and it should loosen so you can remove.
To insert the Ram, just push it in place until the clips 'snap' into place.
Make note of where the cut out is on the bottom Ram card and make sure you insert the new Ram correctly.

culpepper

You might need to check what motherboard you have so you can see how much ram you are able to have in all.

If it wont take anymore, you could try running an earlier operating system (win 95?) or maybe linux.

Debt_Free_Chick

If you run the Scan My System check at Crucial, it will specify the precise type of memory and tell you the maximum you can fit. Worth running even if you don't buy from them.

amit_1

https://www.crucial.com very easy to install it i tried it my 1st time with a brand new laptop and it worked it took 10 seconds to out the extra ram in the laptop

soon2bjobless

Thanks for all your replies - at the moment its soooo slow I dont think I could connect to the net!!! Am taking off unnecesary programmes to see if it makes it any better......

ThemeOne

I have recently upgraded an old machine so you might find the following useful:

The computer your are upgrading may use an even older type of memory called SIMMs. This is the case with mine, and I have just run the Crucial scanner, which failed to detect this type of memory! This is unfortunate because there are many more variables to get wrong with SIMMs such as speed, parity etc. So if you find the Crucial scanner no good you may have SIMMs. You can still buy these chips, however - I've found Misco have the best prices.

A RAM upgrade will increase the speed of your computer, but it's not the whole story. If you have a slow processor, you will be still be limited by that. Ditto if you have a small, older hard disk with little memory cache. It may not be worth getting a new processor, but a new hard disk might be good.

Keep your upgrades to a relatively modest scale initially. I'd suggest taking it up to something like 128MB RAM, with a hard disk of at least 20G.

I'm not sure how resource-hungry Windows ME is, but you may want to consider rolling back to a leaner OS, particularly as ME has a poor reputation anyway. I would recommend Windows NT4, as it's as solid as a rock, was intended to run on lower spec machines, and is many times better than Windows 95, which is of the same generation.

Remember if you buy the wrong memory, most retailers will not take it back or offer a refund, so do plenty of research before ordering!

Another thing to check is the graphics card memory. Some old graphics cards had very little - e.g. 1MB. For normal non-intensive work such as Office applicaitons, email, web surfing, you're going to need 4MB minimum graphics memory. If you play games, I understand you'll need at least 32MB, and even then you might struggle with some of the newer stuff.

A good way to check what you have got on this computer is to download a free utility called Everest. You can get it from https://www.lavalys.com

lipidicman

You will need to detail the rest of the spec. Changing to a different OS would be a good idea, but NT is old and rather unfriendly to the unexperienced

I run a pII400 on an Asus P2B board (IMHO one of the best boards ever) Adding 320Mb of 100RAM and a new 30Gb hard disk means that this runs windows 2000 a dream. There are even some P3 chips I could run on this board (if I could just find one) Adding the memory really helps windows 2000, but changing my old 8Gb HD for the new one made a big difference too (the 30Gb one is 24Mb/s, the old one was 8Mb/s and the system is much more responsive). In general use, ie browsing forums, using excel and word, a bit of coding etc this system is pretty similar to the 3.0GHz I run at work - and just as stable (Windows 2000 is as good, if not better than XP)