Need advice on choosing RAM

cool.aquarian · 17-07-2010, 08:22 PM

Hi fellow Digitians,

My relative has an old Dell Inspiron 6000 running XP, which came from factory with 2x256mb PC2 3200 RAM and supports dual channel with max 1GB PC2 5300 in each slot.

Recently, one of the RAM stick seems to have conked off.
The major use of the Laptop is: Internet Access, chatting, movies, music and working on Office Documents. And he is against unnecessary spending right now.
So, I am confused whether to:
1. buy him single 1GB stick and use it with the working 256mb stick (with maybe later upgrade to 1GB) or,
2. buy him two 512mb sticks and tuck away the 256mb one.

How much would be performance difference in both RAM combinations 1.25 GB(single channel) vs 1GB(dual channel) considering his usage?

Also, if going for first option, should I place the higher RAM in DIMMA and lower in DIMMB, or otherwise around or it does not matter ?

Thank you

**Sam** · 18-07-2010, 08:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cool.aquarian

Hi fellow Digitians,

My relative has an old Dell Inspiron 6000 running XP, which came from factory with 2x256mb PC2 3200 RAM and supports dual channel with max 1GB PC2 5300 in each slot.

Recently, one of the RAM stick seems to have conked off.
The major use of the Laptop is: Internet Access, chatting, movies, music and working on Office Documents. And he is against unnecessary spending right now.
So, I am confused whether to:
1. buy him single 1GB stick and use it with the working 256mb stick (with maybe later upgrade to 1GB) or,
2. buy him two 512mb sticks and tuck away the 256mb one.

How much would be performance difference in both RAM combinations 1.25 GB(single channel) vs 1GB(dual channel) considering his usage?

Also, if going for first option, should I place the higher RAM in DIMMA and lower in DIMMB, or otherwise around or it does not matter ?

Thank you

better sell out the extra 256Mb & settle for 2X1Gb stick. the performance will take quite a jump. or use 1GB + 256Mb. BTW whats is the processor & graphics?

cool.aquarian · 18-07-2010, 10:59 PM

It has got Intel Pentium M 1.50GHz processor, Intel 915GM chipset with onboard graphics(64MB shared).
So, I feel 2x1GB is an overkill for XP system and such usage. The RAM combinations I am now considering are:
1. 256MB+1GB
2. 256MB+512MB
3. 2x512MB

which one to go for ? Please help. I need to finalize and buy the RAM tomorrow.

**Sam** · 19-07-2010, 12:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cool.aquarian

It has got Intel Pentium M 1.50GHz processor, Intel 915GM chipset with onboard graphics(64MB shared).
So, I feel 2x1GB is an overkill for XP system and such usage. The RAM combinations I am now considering are:
1. 256MB+1GB
2. 256MB+512MB
3. 2x512MB

which one to go for ? Please help. I need to finalize and buy the RAM tomorrow.

serious overkill. better go for 1Gb + 256Mb or say 512Mb X 2 but will be lot costly. opt for 1st option.