upgrading memory

[famas]

hi all

my mate has a very cheap dell pc, which only has 256mb of ram. he find it to be annoyingly slow, so he wants to upgrade to 1gb of ram.
i was thinking of getting him the cheap 1GB ocuk value ram.taking out the 256 that is already in there and putting in the 1GB, will this work ok. does all ram work with every motherboard.
also is it just the case of taking the old ram out and putting the new stuff in, i dont have to install any thing?
also is there any thing i should watch out for?

hope some one can help
Cheers

 

[The_TailGunner]

you need to make sure you get the right kind of memory- its possible his mobo can only handle pc2700 (ddr333) memory (though if thats the case, you can likely still use pc3200 and it'll just run slower)

nothing to install, just whip out the old memory, bung in the new (only fits one way round, so be careful). make sure you dont touch the pins along the bottom.

should be a fairly straightforward job, but you may need to clear the cmos (bios)when done.

TG

 

[pieman109]

hi all

my mate has a very cheap dell pc, which only has 256mb of ram. he find it to be annoyingly slow, so he wants to upgrade to 1gb of ram.
i was thinking of getting him the cheap 1GB ocuk value ram.taking out the 256 that is already in there and putting in the 1GB, will this work ok. does all ram work with every motherboard.
also is it just the case of taking the old ram out and putting the new stuff in, i dont have to install any thing?
also is there any thing i should watch out for?

hope some one can help
Cheers

I tried to instal some memory in a dell for a mate a while back, and the memory just wouldn't fit, the notch was slightly offset on the mobo. This meant either a mobo change or buying dell memory. It was cheaper to replace the mobo!
Try and check first if ordinary memory will fit first. If it doesn't, I've got 2 x 512 of dell memory here that as far as I know is perfect (except it won't fit on any mobo except a dell)
Chances are ordinary memory will fit, you never know, it caught me out.

 

[famas]

cheers for your comments guys, i will have to take a closer look at the motherboard i think, dont want to waste his money,
he did phone dell to ask how much it would cost him to upgrade to 1GB or ram, it was more than double what ocuk charge.