Game Guides Archive
Thread: How do I see what type of memory my system has?
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Gib_Slater
Sun Dec 26, 2004 5:32 pm
#1
I found it before, but now I can't. I'd like to add an additional 512 MB of RAM to my existing 512, but I need to know exactly what type to buy. I have windows xp w/ service pack 2, where do I look to see what type i have?
Gib_Slater
Sun Dec 26, 2004 5:48 pm
#3
I'd like to check it in the system, not by opening. Besides, I once looked, and I didn't notice any distinguishing markings.
Cobacca1
Sun Dec 26, 2004 7:28 pm
#4
nevermind, I mis-read your statement...
Message Edited by Cobacca1 on 12-26-2004 09:31 PM
Rancor418
Sun Dec 26, 2004 10:48 pm
#5
go to control panel then to system info..should tell you there
Darksfallen
Sun Dec 26, 2004 11:23 pm
#6
The Windows operating system, reguardless of Build doesn't know or care the make and manufacturer of the memory. But it is VERY important the DIMMs are identical in the ms (I think) speeds.
PsionicHawk
Mon Dec 27, 2004 12:36 am
#7
This is what I understand. Speed is important to your motherboard to determine what it supports. My motherboard supports PC2700 and PC3200 ram. If I have one chip of PC2700 RAM (333 mhtz) and one chip of PC3200 RAM (400 mhtz) the PC3200 RAM would slow down to the speed of the PC 2700 RAM.
To determine what kind of ram you have, look at your start-up screen, it should tell you how much you have and at what speed your running it at (mine does at least). If you don't see thisgo into your BIOS(usually pressing delete on start-upwill do this). You can find information on the motherboard this way.Once you have that information youcan do a search on the internet to determine what speed of RAM your motherboard supports.
Message Edited by PsionicHawk on 12-27-2004 02:37 AM
Darksfallen
Mon Dec 27, 2004 12:49 am
#8
PsionicHawk wrote:
This is what I understand. Speed is important to your motherboard to determine what it supports. My motherboard supports PC2700 and PC3200 ram. If I have one chip of PC2700 RAM (333 mhtz) and one chip of PC3200 RAM (400 mhtz) the PC3200 RAM would slow down to the speed of the PC 2700 RAM.
To determine what kind of ram you have, look at your start-up screen, it should tell you how much you have and at what speed your running it at (mine does at least). If you don't see thisgo into your BIOS(usually pressing delete on start-upwill do this). You can find information on the motherboard this way.Once you have that information youcan do a search on the internet to determine what speed of RAM your motherboard supports.
Message Edited by PsionicHawk on 12-27-2004 02:37 AM
While this is true I have had the same mhtz DIMMs in my system and they were not campatible with each other, I'm not sure if it's even a issue anymore but matching the speed and paging times used to be very important. I dunno anymore... Used to be like between 5-8 ms paging or something. But the numbers on the chip will help, while it's no information that would make any sense to us, google the numbers imprinted into the DIMM chips themselves and it should return something, there are also chip configurations that you can download and print, remove the memory and compair the PIN configurations to the print out, providing that you print it in actual size and compare them.
This might just be old school tools now. But if you bought the system retail from Sony, compaq or such, go the the website, most of them will allow you to enter the SN of the machine and it gives you a hardware inventory of the system as it was sold you to.
NomAnor1987
Mon Dec 27, 2004 5:31 am
#9
Or you could simply find the manual for your motherboard and read what it supports... or find out what motherboard you have(if you have thrown the manual away) and google for it... easiest way in my opinion... and usually it tells you which mb it is on startup... at the ram-check screen... and i believe a dxdiag or msthingie shows it too...
Hairy_Wookie
Mon Dec 27, 2004 11:06 am
#10
yeah and dont do like i did and buy used Ram...I just bought 2 sims of 256MB of RDram (rambus) The weird thing is sometimes it works and sometimes it doesnt. I have chaned the configuration with the other 2 sticks i had (positions on mobo) and nothing. All 4 sticks are from Samsung. Somethig tells me i might have a burnt stick but that diesnt explain why sometime it works and sometimes it doesnt. Can anyone clarify this problem for me? Whenever it doesnmt work the pc makes an odd deep beep sound and nothing else. After several reboots it works.
DeQuosaek
Mon Dec 27, 2004 12:07 pm
#11
Yeah, the most reliable way to tell isto simply open the case (usually just 2 phillips head screws on one side) and look at the RAM itself. There should be a sticker somewhere on it and it will say something like 512DDR333CL2.5 or PC2700 or 333MHz or something like that. (or PC100 or PC133 if you have older SDR memory)
PC2100 = DDR266 = 266MHz
PC2700 = DDR333 = 333MHz
PC3200 = DDR400 = 400MHz
PC3500 = DDR433 = 433MHz
Ifthe writingon the stickerlooks like my first example, 512DDR333CL2.5, then it means...
512 is the amount of memory, 512MB
DDR333 is theclock speed of the memory, 333MHz
CL2.5 is the latency of the memory, 2.5 clock cycles (more later)
There are programs that will tell you what speed your RAM is set to run at, but it will only tell you what speed it is set to run at in the BIOS, not the real speed of the RAM.
For exampleyou could have pc3200 (400MHz) and have it set in the BIOS to run at pc2700 (333MHz) and in that case, any software will just tell youthe information thatthe BIOS passes to it.
If youuse a Pentium 4processor you'll have to have a newer processor with a front side bus speed of 800MHzto take advantage of the speed of memory rated at DDR400. If you have an older Pentium 4 with a 533MHz front side bus,DDR400 memory will only run at DDR333.
And if you want to get technical, you should probably try and match the memory latency timings too. The memory latency is the amount of time it takes to access the memory. The smaller the numbers, the better. Many memory manufacturers just use a single number to describe the memory's latency. It is usually written as CL=2.5. Usually it ranges from 2 to4. A latency value of 2 is very quick, but usually quite expensive. A value of 4 in pretty uncommon and isslower. Usually you'll see 2.5 or 3. There are other latency values, but I'm sure I've already gotten too technical for this question anyway, so I won't get into it.
But like another poster said, if you get faster or slower memory than what you have, your motherboard will usually detect that and run them at the speed of the slowest one. Of course that makes it a bad idea to put in memory that is slower than the stuff you have, since it will make it run slower also.Some motherboards won't detect the speeds right when you have mismatched chips, so it's a good idea to match them as close as possible. (especially if you have a motherboard with dual channel memory slots)
*disclaimer: I'm just giving some information. You can use it however you want. You can't sue me.
MackAgp
Mon Dec 27, 2004 6:45 pm
#12
Gib_Slater wrote:
I found it before, but now I can't. I'd like to add an additional 512 MB of RAM to my existing 512, but I need to know exactly what type to buy. I have windows xp w/ service pack 2, where do I look to see what type i have?
May I recommend this little tool from Crucial Memory
http://www.crucial.com/uk/systemscanner/index.asp
Gib_Slater
Mon Dec 27, 2004 6:55 pm
#13
Thank you everyone. I remembered where I had found it before. I went to the computer manufacturers site and it allows you to enter your serial number, and it tells you your build.
Incidently, I have PC2100 DDR266. Boo! lol. So, I guess I need to pick up another 512 of that. At least I'll be over 1 Gig of something.
Incidently, I have PC2100 DDR266. Boo! lol. So, I guess I need to pick up another 512 of that. At least I'll be over 1 Gig of something.
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