How do increase RAM ?

[Pickled Piper]

My Dell Dimension PC gas got 512MB of RAM. I'm using it for DV editing and finding it a bit slow. I've been advised to buy some more RAM. I would appreciate some advice on where to buy, what to buy, how much (RAM) and how to go about fitting it.

I'm not a total computer numpty, but any help would be appreciated.

pp

[Plotloss]

What model of Dimension is it?

How old etc.

If you go to www.crucial.co.uk there is a utility which you download, it interrogates the memory and then links you to the product you need on their website...

[Pickled Piper]

Hi PlotLoss

Its a dimension 4550 about 18 months old.

From memory, I specified it with 512MB in one slot so that I could add more RAM to the vacant slot. Does that make sense?

I'll try the crucial site. Cheers

pp

[bga]

Plotloss said:

What model of Dimension is it? How old etc. If you go to www.crucial.co.uk there is a utility which you download, it interrogates the memory and then links you to the product you need on their website...

www.crucial.com/uk/index.asp would be a bit more useful

[ThatPhilBrettGuy]

All good advice. The only thing I'd say is don't expect it to help much (if at all) with the speed of the editing. That said, you can never have too much RAM.

[Pigeon]

Have you got DMA turned on on the hard drive? That might be giving you slowness if you haven't got DMA turned on.

[neil_cardiff]

I have to add my tuppence worth, Dell have this annoying habit of putting RDRAM in their machines, which, while undeniably better quality, is a lot more expensive than SDRAM, and seeing as you can't mix them, you're stuck with buying RDRAM.

Now I seem to remember it being a tad expensive when I last looked

[Plotloss]

bga said:

Plotloss said: What model of Dimension is it? How old etc. If you go to <a href="http://www.crucial.co.uk">www.crucial.co.uk</a> there is a utility which you download, it interrogates the memory and then links you to the product you need on their website... www.crucial.com/uk/index.asp would be a bit more useful

D'oh!

[Pickled Piper]

Thanks everyone. I think I know what I'm doing now.

pp

[JonRB]

If you're fitting it yourself then take anti-static precautions when fitting, even if it's just touching earth before handling the memory (although obviously a proper anti-static wrist strap would be even better).

[Pickled Piper]

OK, bought it, installed it and now enjoying it.

I wander what I can upgarde next?

pp

[ThatPhilBrettGuy]

Pickled Piper said:

OK, bought it, installed it and now enjoying it. I wander what I can upgarde next? pp

How many hard drives have you got? With video having scratch and work files on different disks REALLY speeds things up. Ideally have 3+..O/S, scratch/temp disk, data disk.

[Pickled Piper]

Mmmmm, only got the one hard drive of 120gig.

Tell me more.

pp