Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Hardware and RAM

Make computer run faster

desjardins — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 06:23:19 -0800

Please help me make this computer run faster. It's running Windows XP, and I'll tell you everything else I know inside. This is for my husband's birthday. He built his computer 4-5 years ago and it's running ~~slowly~~ like crap. He's mentioned rebuilding the thing and I'd like to get him some of the component parts. I assume I need to upgrade the CPU and/or RAM. My husband is a hardware expert, but I'd like to keep this a surprise and not ask him for help. He's too busy to read Mefi right now so he won't see this but don't tell him pls kthx.

Here's the current specs:
AMD Sempron (m) 2600+
1.60 GHz, 1 GB RAM

And his video card, if that has anything to do with anything:
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500

He's not much of a gamer anymore so it doesn't need to be able to support the latest and greatest HALO 5 or whatever. But since he knows exactly what he's looking at, I'd like to get him something decent.

I'll answer any other questions if you tell me where to find the answers. I have the admin password if necessary. I'm extremely reluctant to take it apart.

What do I need to look at when buying a new laptop?

reenum — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 09:28:05 -0800

I'm in the market for a new laptop. Should I get a PC or Mac? What specs are important for me to look at when making a decision? My Toshiba Satellite A65 seems to be on its last legs, so I think I'm getting a new laptop.

In researching, I've become confused as to which specs really matter when looking at a computer.

Here's what I would use it for:
- E-mail, IM, and Web
- Watching DVDs
- BitTorrent
- Word processing and spreadsheets
- Tracking my finances
- Some music creation (mostly breakbeats)

I've seen some places say that I need as much RAM as possible, others stress the importance of a large hard drive, yet others say I need the fastest processor.

Also, any recommendations as to brands that are more reliable than others?

Please help!

Which of these computer components is faulty?

Who_Am_I — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 06:37:41 -0800

I bought a new motherboard and a new video card, and now my computer beeps and won't boot to Windows. Which one is to blame? I've just combined this motherboard and this video card to build myself a new computer. When I power on I get one long beep and then three short beeps, which is code for "No video card or bad video RAM" according to BiosCentral (no beep codes in the mobo manual, thanks Asus). Ok so bad video card right? Except that after about 30 seconds the monitor does come on and it attempts to boot: POST screens come up, I can get into the BIOS, etc. If I let it continue to boot I get the "Safe Mode, Boot Normally, ..." screen, and then it bluescreens no matter which I choose. Also I was able to fully boot into an Ultimate Boot CD which contained a Windows environment. If the video card were actually bad, I wouldn't be able to do any of this right?

All this makes me think faulty motherboard. I flashed the BIOS to the newest version, and changed the setting for "default video device" from PCI to PCIe, neither of which made any difference. I don't have any spare compatible components to test anything separately, and the board has no onboard video. I'm pretty handy with computers, but this is my first time working with stuff like PCIe. Is there something obvious I'm missing? I bought through Newegg so I assume I'll be able to RMA anything I need to.

PCIe 1.1 vs 2.0 / DDR2 vs 3

cyrusdogstar — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 12:49:00 -0800

Is PCIe 1.x x16 a viable technology for a gaming PC intended to last for the next 3+ years? What about DDR2? I'm completely replacing my existing gaming PC (Athlon64/Socket 939/AGP/DDR1) and the current affordable parts are all along a Core 2 Duo/LGA 775/PCIe 1.x x16/DDR2 path. I can put together a very decent replacement for about what I spent on the previous setup, which is good.

However, I'd like to avoid what happened with my last PC - namely the fact that it was built just around the time PCIe replaced AGP, and DDR2 replaced DDR1. As such, the only thing I've realistically been able to upgrade is adding more memory; no good GPU upgrades, no good CPU upgrades, etc.

I'm afraid that, despite PCIe 2.0 being backwards compatible, I'll find myself having to do another full revamp in 3 years' time because the PCIe 1.1 bus would bottleneck a PCIe 2.0 or 3.0 card. Similarly, I wonder if DDR2 will be completely eclipsed by DDR3, and/or newer processors will want DDR3 exclusively by that point.

To make a long story short, will I get any upgrade mojo with aforementioned Core 2 Duo based setup, or would it be smart to wait another 3-6 months and hope PCI 2.0/DDR3 based systems come way down in price? I'm trying to keep the cost below $1000 USD, and such systems would definitely go way above that right now.

Or should I just assume that a full rebuild every 3 years is to be expected? I know many people constantly ~~flush money down the toilet~~ pour money into their "gaming rigs" and effectively upgrade yearly; is there a reasonable outside limit?

I can provide a link to the specific parts in question if necessary but wanted this to be a more general question instead of "critique my build plz kthx". Also, apologies for the multiple related questions.

Did my new RAM kill my video adapter?

YoungAmerican — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 17:31:06 -0800

BSODFilter: I tried to install a RAM upgrade in my girlfriend's Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop, and got nothing on screen after powerup. So I replaced the old DIMM, and got the BSOD -- the file that was missing was a driver for the Intel video adapter. Long story short, it's still not working. I wiped the HD, reinstalled windows, reinstalled the drivers, and after some installing and re-installing, finally have the computer starting up in XP. But it's giving me the BSOD seemingly randomly every hour or two. This is with everything as it was BEFORE the troubles started.

I spent a number of hours on the line with tech support, they seem completely baffled. In typical tech support fashion, all they want to do is install and reinstall drivers. I've googled my rear off, but to no avail.

Could I somehow have zapped my video adapter when I installed the DIMM? Could they conflict somehow? Would replacing the video adapter fix the problem? Could I replace it myself, as someone who's never done anything more than replace drives and RAM?

If I start up with the new RAM only, I can get it going in safe mode, but with weird purple lines up and down the screen.

I was about to buy a new computer to replace this one, but part of the plan involved getting a few hundred bucks for the oldie-but-goodie, which won't work if it's an oldie-but-baddie. Help me mefites, you're my only hope.

DIMM DDR RAM INSANITY

thirteenkiller — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 06:34:37 -0800

PC performance issues. 1) Is it a good idea to fill up all 3 of my DIMM slots, when my motherboard manual says that the max speed will be DDR 200 instead of DDR 400? The motherboard is an ASUS K8V SE Deluxe. 2) How do I best identify the bottlenecked hardware component that's causing framerate jerkiness e.g. when playing Oblivion (e.g. RAM, processor, AGP card)?

Laptop on the cheap. What are the minimum specs?

Leonard of Vince — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 13:30:29 -0800

Shopping for a cheap used laptop: What are the minimum specs I should be looking for with respect to CPU, RAM, HD? I'm planning to use WinXP (maybe I'll settle for 2K), Open Office, and FireFox (including some AJAX-heavy web sites such as gmail, Google Docs, del.icio.us), with a wifi card. And not much else. I want to avoid "I'm always waiting for this stupid slow computer!" but not spend much more than the minimum needed to avoid that.

Computer upgrade options

Elpoca — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 20:25:43 -0800

I'd like to upgrade my 4 year old Dell Dimension 8200 computer, while hopefully getting components that I could use later, should I decide to build a whole new system in a few months. Sadly, I know nearly nothing about computer hardware. The system specifications (from the Dell support site) are:

3K363 PROCESSOR, 80531, 1.8G, 0, 400FSB, SOCKET N, D0
8G894 ASSEMBLY, CARD (CIRCUIT), PLANAR (MOTHERBOARD), DIM8200, NO-RSR
4T234 RAMBUS INLINE MEMORY MODULE, 128, 400M, 64X16, 4C, 40
9578D CARD (CIRCUIT), MEMORY BOARD, MEMORY, PRINTED WIRING BOARD, CONTINUITY, RAMBUS

Despite what (I think) is shown above, my system has 256MB of memory, but I'd still like to get more. Unfortunately, from what I can ascertain, my system takes RDRAM, and cheap memory of this type doesn't seem to exist. Am I mistaken in my system's memory type? Or, does cheap RDRAM exist? Could another type of memory be used instead?

I'm also thinking about getting a larger hard drive. I've read that SATA hard drives are better. Is this true? Can my system connect to a SATA drive? Or, if not, if I get an IDE drive, will it still be able to connect to motherboards in a couple years?

Finally, and if necessary, is it possible to replace the motherboard and processor in my computer? I've heard that with Dells, replacing major hardware components is not always possible.

Basically, I'm trying to cheaply upgrade my system now (while I'm poor), while getting components that I can use later in a new system (when I'm less poor). Is this possible, or am I stuck with what I've got?

I've googled for answers to these questions but I'm still unclear on many things. I'd appreciate some expert opinions!

Computer RAM irregularities

spartacusroosevelt — Wed, 26 May 2004 14:42:30 -0800

Installed RAM, what XP sees vs. what CMOS sees. (MI) I had some computers donated to the school from a local retailer. They had been returns that were held too long to return to the manufacturer and that didn't work well enough to sell to staff members. I had 6 machines total donated, two just appeared to have some sort of Windows problems and would crap out during the windows part of boot up. Not a problem, XP reinstalled in a jiffy. During the POST test and in CMOS both machines see the proper amount of RAM. If I put in a 128MB stick, XP shows (in the system control panel) 112 installed (-16MB). If I put in two 128MB sticks or one 256MB stick, XP sees 224MB (-32MB). This occurs in both machines with the DDR RAM from any of the 6 donated boxes. I don't have a working DDR box handy or I would check the RAM in it. This sounds like a RAM slot issue (the problem occurs using either slot) but POST counts the proper amount of RAM. Is this a common issue, a known XP hiccup of some kind?

Is generic vs. brand name a big deal when dealing with RAM?

BlueTrain — Wed, 12 May 2004 10:10:30 -0800

This is an extremely subjective question...In an earlier thread I mentioned that I couldn't find memory below $150, but several members here found it for much less. However, much of the cheaper RAM is generic. Does it matter? Is generic vs. brand name a big deal when dealing with RAM?

PC power supply effect on memory report

picea — Mon, 01 Mar 2004 08:29:21 -0800

PC hardware problem: I recently had my power supply replaced and now the computer now only reads half the RAM it actually has plugged into it... The full story: I moved into a new apartment in an old building, and my power supply died on me. I took it to a computer shop to be replaced and they took out my generic 400w jobby and put in a 300w Sparkle. It seemed to work okay after that, but a bit slow. I checked the RAM and it only read 256mb of the 512mb. I switched it into a different slot, and it came up as 512mb again... but only briefly. Recently it's gone back to reading 256mb. I've looked around for answers via Google, but got nothing too helpful.

Some facts: 1) This is not new RAM. It's what came with my PC when I originally got it. 2) Running Win98 3) I regret taking it to these knobs, and really don't want to have them touch my PC again.