Hi there i have uploded some screen shots of my computer and was hoping someone can advise me on the best ram to buy, i am looking for 2gb but not to sure on the exact ones, i would be most appreciated with some expert advice

Thanks

Attached Images

	cpu screenshot1.jpg (57.4 KB, 12 views)
	cpu 2.jpg (47.4 KB, 7 views)
	cpu3.jpg (23.3 KB, 4 views)
	cpu4.jpg (29.8 KB, 2 views)

Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner - I was out last night, and I've been out at college all day and busy with the family all evening.

Did you build and set your PC up yourself? I ask because it looks to me like you have your RAM running at PC2100 - the bus frequency is 133MHz, which is a rather odd setup given that your RAM's SPD is reporting that it's capable of PC3200 speeds, and your motherboard manual states it is capable of a maximum bus-speed of 166MHz (effective 333MHz Double Data Rate, or DDR333)

A bus speed of 166MHz would give you PC2700, and a bus speed of 200MHz would give you PC3200. However, as you stated in your first post on your other thread, your motherboard is only capable of supporting RAM at 166MHz, so buying anything rated over PC2700 is a waste of money.

Can I ask you why you want 2GB RAM? Working from the assumption that you're on Windows XP and using your motherboard's integrated graphics chip (rather than a separate graphics card), I doubt that your RAM is bottlenecking your system significantly, and would venture the opinion that adding another 1GB won't make a significant difference to your day-to-day usage.

Anyway, that's my tuppence.

Thanks mate for getting back, i will be honest with you, the info you have mentioned does not make much sense to me. i was understanding that moving over from 1gb to 2 gb of ram would instantly speed up my computer as i noticed the difference when moving from 512 to 1gb, i do have a nivida ge force fx 5500 graphics card and is running xp prof, a friend did build this computer around 3years + ago and since then over the years have upgraded the ram added pci cards etc,when i upgraded the ram i paid little attention to frequencys etc as lack of knowledge

i would like to make my computer better and faster and is learning all the time from people like yourself is the set up i have bad for my computer or making it disfunctional what would be your best advice.

thanks

No problem

Looking back at my posts, I see that I haven't been particularly clear and explained the relationship between CPU, system bus and RAM clearly enough - I'll do it below, although it's a bit of a "wall-of-text", which is often not the best way :

There are five main parts to a computer - you've probably heard them before - CPU, Sytem Memory (RAM), Motherboard (including the chipset), Graphics Adapter and Mass Storage (HDDs).

The parts that we are interested in right now are CPU, motherboard, and RAM. The three need to be able to communicate with each other, and need to be able to synchronise when data is transferred - for all the electronic wizardry that goes into a modern computer, it still effectively runs on clockwork

The part of the computer that is primarily responsible for the synchronisation of the CPU and RAM is the system bus. The system bus is one half of the mechanism that controls CPU frequency, and one half of the mechanism that controls the RAM frequency. The system bus itself operates at certain frequencies. It is the frequencies that determine how much data can be sent back and forth between components. Higher frequencies represent higher speeds (also referred to as bandwidth).

The system bus on somewhat older computers like yours and mine runs between 100MHz and 200MHz. This is blazing fast compared to PCs from 10 years ago, but is nothing like the speeds that your processor can reach - your current CPU is running at 2.4GHz - 2,400MHz. CPUs can do this because they have a multiplier. As an analogy, imagine that your PC is a bicycle. The system bus is similar, in a way, to your legs as you pedal. you can only complete so many pushes on the pedal in one minute. Some bicycles are much faster than others. This is not because some bicycles allow you to pedal faster, but rather because some bicycles have gears, which multiply the number of times the wheels rotate in relation to your pedalling. The gears are acting as a multiplier, in a similar way to the CPU multiplier in a PC. Obviously, it's not an exact analogy, but it illustrates the relationship between system bus speed and CPU speed.

If you go back to the screenshots you posted, you'll notice that, on the first shot, there is a box just over halfway down the window. It states that your processor speed is 2,390MHz - 2.4GHz. If you look below that, you'll notice that it states you have an x18 multiplier in effect, on a system bus speed of 132.8MHz ===> 132.8 x 18 = 2390

• system bus = 133MHz
• multiplier = x18
• CPU speed = 2390MHz (2.39GHz)

Thus you can see how the system bus helps to determine CPU speed.

Now, your CPU needs somewhere to store the results of all those calculations it does (2.4GHz = 2,400,000,000 calculations/second). The first place for this is the RAM. The RAM is similar to what psychologists call "working memory" in humans - it is where data is stored temporarily while the CPU does something else. Imagine, for example, that you want to do the following calculation:Your computer can't do the calculation all at once, it breaks it down into stages, does them one-by-one, and stores each result in RAM until it is ready to do the final calculation:

• 12 x 12 = 144
• 2 x 24 = 48
• 144 / 48 = 3

It will then display the result.

The benefit of storing data in RAM as opposed to on a hard disk is that it's available immediately. We'll come back to this later.

The RAM doesn't connect directly to the CPU, but goes through the system bus, and works on similar frequencies (i.e. there's no multiplier capable of the same thing as a CPU multiplier). The frequencies are not always the same, particularly if you're overclocking, but they're mainly governed by the system bus frequency. Therefore, on a standard setup, the RAM data transfer frequency (remember "bandwidth") is the same as the system bus frequency. In your machine's case, this means that your RAM is running at 132.8MHz, or 132.8 Million input/output cycles per second.

Modern RAM is known as DDR (SD)RAM - the "DDR" stands for Double Data Rate. Essentially, this means that your RAM can input/output at double the system bus speeds. Therefore a system bus speed of 133MHz will often be called DDR266 (133 x 2 = 266). DDR RAM mostly comes in DDR266, DDR333, and DDR400 flavours, each designed to work with a particular system bus speed. RAM designed to work with a system bus speed of 200MHz (DDR400) will work fine with lower system bus speeds, hence your PC works fine.

DDR speeds are also referrred to as "PCxxxx" This is just another way of expressing the same information. The number on PCxxxx RAM is simply a multiple of the system bus speed. For example, on a system bus running at 133MHz, the DDR speed is 266. (133 x 2). Now, the PCxxxx speed is 2100 - 133 x 2 x 8. Thus, DDR266 RAM is also referred to as PC2100.

For a system bus speed of 166MHz, the matching RAM speed is PC2700:

• 166 x 2 = 333
• 333 x 8 = 2656

The discrepancies come from rounding the results to nice, round, memorable, human-friendly numbers.

If you look at the "Memory" tabs in the CPUz screenies you posted, you'll notice that it says "PC3200". This is the same figure that the Kingston memory checker gave you. 3200/8 = DDR400. 400/2 = 200. This shows that the RAM was designed to run on a system bus of 200MHz. However, it is, in fact, running at PC2100, since your system bus is running at 133MHz. The maximum speed your system bus can run at is 166MHz, resulting in memory frequencies of DDR333, or PC2700. This is why I said there's no point in buying PC3200, as you're just wasting money on RAM your system can't take full advantage of.

OK, moving from 256MB, or even 512MB to 1GB makes a very noticeable difference to your computing experience. I mentioned earlier that writing data to RAM is better than writing data to disc because it's much more responsive. Basically. PC2700 RAM has a data transfer speed of 2.7GB/Second. The newest hard drives can read/write at 300MB/second theoretically, and in reality somewhat slower than that. RAM speeds are at least an order of magnitude faster than hard drive read/write speeds. Thus, when your system runs out of RAM to store data in, it is forced to write excess data to the hard disk. this operation, called "paging" is cripplingly slow. This is why increasing RAM often increases the performance of the system, particularly on machines with little RAM.

My current laptop came with 256MB RAM and a 1.4GHz processor. Replacing that with 1GB of RAM really made the machine more responsive and fluid. However, there is a limit to the difference that RAM can make. If an operating system and any running programs are not occupying more RAM than is available, then the system won't have to write data to hard disk, and consequently there will be little to no noticeable lag. In day-to-day operations , lag will much more likely be caused by:

• A slow processor
• A slow hard drive
• A heavily fragmented hard drive
• An old video card (in games and/or 3D applications)
• Too many processes eating processor cycles
• Spyware/Adware/Trojans (see the previous point)

.A full install of XP Pro, with anti-virus and anti-malware running should take up around 300MB RAM after a full day's use. This leaves 700MB for programs to load into. In day-to-day usage, you will never find programs using >700MB RAM. The only real exception would be gaming. Battlefield 2, for example, likes to sit in memory. It has a fat arse, however, and takes up more than 800MB if your system has the RAM to handle it.

Where or when do you notice slowdowns? If it's gaming, I'd suggest that an FX5500 is nowhere near capable of running modern games - it would even struggle with GTA: San Andreas - I know, I used to have one

the setup you have isn't harming your computer in any way whatsoever, IMO - it works, doesn't it?

Any advice I gave you would depend on what you want to do with your computer, so... What do you want to do with it? Be warned, i might say "buy a new computer"

WOW thanks mate some really useful info, this has made me understand certain aspects in a different persepctive (simplified) in other words.

most appreciated

Kind regards Nigel

No problem.

What do you want to do with your computer then?

i would like to make it faster say when using nero etc the time it take to convert avi file to dvd etc is slow the burn process from start to finish is about 4-5 hours, i dont really do gaming, i use kasperskys sercurity suite so some mb is lost there i suppose ,i was having some real issues with xp since of late so i have bought a new hard drive as old one was full and have re-installed windows but now i cannot access the old files from my old hard drive, i have set old hd to slave but when i connect it boots windows up from from the old hard drive. i am probably being a bit silly and most people would say that there is nothing wrong with my computer, i am just one of these guys who want everything fast and top spec and up to date was even looking today at Dell's quad core tower! I do a lot of digital photo and have a nikon slr so i use alot of software like magix movie edit pro, photoshop cs3 and nikon picture project and it can sometime be a bit on the slow side but that is me prob being impatient.

Well, that's one of your problems right there - Nero is well-known for not being particularly fast for conversion, programs like "ConvertXtoDVD" are much quicker. That might be because the volume label on both drives is set to C:\, so Windows can only see one of the drives. It's also not necessary to set the drive to slave, iirc - it used to be, but isn't any longer. From memory(!), you can check your hard drives like this:

• Click the Start button
• Open Control Panel
• Go to Administrative Tools
• Go to Computer Management
• Go to Disk Management
• Hard disks and optical drives connected to your PC should be listed, with information about their capacity, how full they are, and any partitions on the drive.

Can you see both your drives here? what labels do they have? Those apps are pretty CPU intensive more than memory intensive - indeed Photoshop manipulations are often used for benchmarking processors on sites like TomsHardwareGuide or Hexus. CS3 is a bit heavy on the RAM though, so it's worth checking whether or not it's actually forcing your computer to write system files to virtual memory. Open up CS3 and do what you normally do with it for a while - work on a normal project for an hour or so, for example, then hit Ctrl+Alt+Del to open up the task manager. How much RAM is your system using? In the bottom right corner of the window, it will tell you how much (where it says "Commit charge...") . You should also do the same when you have multiple programs open at the same time - This will show you if the programs you normally have open at the same time are using more than your system RAM has available. If they are using more than 1GB, then you might well see a benefit from adding RAM - you will be able to switch between active programs quicker, and launch programs quicker if you have enough RAM. It really all depends on how much those programs use.

If, on the other hand, you're more interested in browsing while you're converting an avi to DVD, then I think you're really looking at your CPU - movie file conversions and rendering, etc... eat up all your available CPU cycles, and your system lags because your PC is struggling to perform basic housekeeping tasks, let alone manage your internet browser. This is the problem with single-core CPUs - if you max them out, you'll find it extremely difficult to do anything else.

Thanks will try what you said, when i look under computer management only my new drive is there as i have unplugged my old c drive due to it booting up, whats the way around that so i can access files on that hd while still using my new hd to start up from also where can i get that software 'convertxtodvd'

To prevent your old drive booting up, you need to go into the BIOS and change the order of the drives that your PC boots from. That will prevent it from booting from your old drive. Alternatively, you can put your old drive in a USB caddy, and windows will mount it automatically.

As far as convertXtoDVD is concerned, google it!

hi there sorry to be doofas but what is it you do in the BIOS settings to allow my old hard drive to be accepted, i had a look in there and is show something about [HDD0] HDD1 HDD2 HDD3 not sure?

First of all, you need to work out what channel each disk is on - e.g. HD1, HD2, HD3, etc... The BIOS should always assign the same channel to a disk in one physical socket.

once you've worked out which disk is on which channel, you should look for a "Hard Disk Boot Priority" of "First Boot" function in the BIOS, and set your PC to boot from the new disk.

sorry and how do you find what channel is what??

plug one drive into one socket, and go into the BIOS settings - that will show you which channel that drive is on. You can then plug in your second drive, and note down which channel that appears on.

Then you go into the boot preferences screen and select which drive you want the PC to boot from.

still baffled still can not get this bloddy harddrive to work