Hi
I have been reading your forums for a few days, and they are very interesting and friendly, so I thought maybe someone could give me some advice.

I have a pc running xp home, xp2700+, 120gb hd, G force 4, with 2 x 256mb DDR ram.

I want to add more memory, and another hard drive, but i am confused as to the make of memory i can use.  my current sticks are 256mb ddr 333 cl2.5, I have three slots on my motherboard, but i'm unsure if i can use all three, (two are in use  at the moment).
I don't mind totally replacing the sticks I have, but again, i'm not sure what to replace it with.
I use my pc for games, internet and watching movies.
I usually have 2 or 3 things going on at once, which is causing a slow down, so I think more memory is the way to go, but if anyone has any other ideas please throw them at me. I have upped my virtual memory, which has helped slightly, but as this is taken from my hd, i'm not keen on that either.
Also, if i add another hard drive and more memory will i need to change anything else, like power supply or fan.  I'm not at home right now so i can't tell you what i have in that respect.
Sorry for the long post, hope it makes sense.
Thanks
Michele
BTW i'm not very tech minded, so any answers in plain english if poss! ty

Hi Shelly, and  

For the memory, you could do a lot worse than pay a visit to www.crucial.com.  As long as you know the make and model of your motherboard, they will tell you what memory you can use.  If you don't know the details of your motherboard, you could download Belarc Advisor, which is a free utility.  This scans your PC and tells you what it's made of.

One of the techies should be able to help you with the rest of your query.  

Check the memory sticks for any manufacturer names.

Some types of memory will not work with others, which is a pain, but if you have no markings, then its more likely to be "generic" memory, so any "generic" 333Mhz 2.5CL sticks would be fine (2.5CL is standard for this type of memory, and is nothing special - your 333Mhz is the important bit here).

Your mainboard may only be able to accept a max amount of memory, but I would suggest with the speed of the CPU, the mainboard should accept at least 3 x 512 sticks.... another 256 stick to bring you to 3 x 256 should be fine.

Hard drive is no problem, providing that you only have 3 "drives" (or less) already (DVD/CD/CDRW/HDD - the floppy, if standard, doesn't count). If you already have 4 drives, then you would have to configure a special port, called RAID, to accept the newer drive...


all in all, I would say its probably going to be fine! Depending where you are in the world, goods usually come with a "testing" period - basically you have to see if the product is suitable for your needs. Some stores say this doesn't apply to memory, but it does. If you buy from a small local store, get them to write the return policy on the invoice. Usually you have 7 - 14 days in the UK.

I have tried crucial.com, but i can't find anywhere to put the motherboard model, only the pc make and model, which i don't know.
What i'd like to know is if i could use faster ddr, and replace the 333 with maybe 400, or ddr2?
Thanks again.
Michele
 

Thanks Simon,  but I don't know the make of the mother board.  :-[

I have put the information I got from the advisor in a previous post, but i'm still hanging out for someone to explain most of it to me :-[ :-[.
Sorry for being a pain, and thank you again.

Memory modules
384 Megabytes Installed Memory (why is this only 384, not 512?)

It is probably becuse you have an onboard graphics card which must be 128mbs and that is using the extra 128mbs out of the 512 mbs total leaving you with 384 mbs available the rest of your PC to use  

The only thing that I can find so far about the board that Belarc says you have is that it appears to be an MSI one.

http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=msinforce&page=1&cookie%5Ftest=1

This article was over 2 years ago so there may be some more now as well as that one.
If you try the program that Simon has suggested, hopefully it will narrow the choices down a little.
The other way would be to actually open the case and see if you can see a name and model number and possibly a revision number printed on the motherboard itself  


Edited to add :

Apparently that chipset is also used in some ASUS mobos too so we definately need you to run the other program or to see if you can identify it by opening the case  

Not having much luck here are we?    Perhaps one of our techies can ID the motherboard from that info?

Have you had the machine from new, Shelly?  Where did you buy it?  Is it by any chance a Time or a Tiny?

OK, well I think Time / Tiny often use MSI boards, but it might be worth contacting them with the serial number of the PC (on the back), to see if they can tell you which motherboard you have.  Just a warning,  they will probably try to get you to let them do the upgrade, but once you have the right information, installing new memory is easy enough, unless you really want to pay them about £30 per hour to do it.