PC much faster and I am so happy!

Currie · Post by **Currie** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 3:04 am

Hello Thrall,

My notifications have been broken for at least a week but I just sent myself a PM (wasn’t very interesting) and got an email notification so everything seems to be back to normal.

All the best,
Alan

Thrall · Post by **Thrall** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 3:22 am

Hi Allan, I got a notification, so it´s still working!

Not the first time it´s gone awry.

Good hunting,

Thrall

And I was over twenty five years old when I found out how to pronounce that word. Would you believe I thought it was "orry"

Yes, we are really opening the worm can.

Montrose Budie · Post by **Montrose Budie** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 4:16 pm

Popped round to Royal Mail this morning at 7:30, we had to be somewhere quite a few miles away at 9........ and wouldn't be back before their new closure time of 12:30...........

Well, after a l-o-n-g time [re-]reading the various sections of the 'puter manual, and reminding myself how to ground myself, and only to touch the ends of the memory cards etc., etc.; after opening said 'puter, it took all of 3 minutes to install the two new memory cards.

Thankfully, unlike the last time I did this many years, it's no longer necessary to go thru a tortuous process via the setup menu of getting the 'puter to recognise and accept the new memory, - it's all now automatic when you boot (start up) with just a screen message "You have new memory" !

Speed difference?, - difficult to judge as yet, but I have the distinct impression that the boot takes a shorter time; plus my HD drive is now quiet most of the time, i.e. not birling roon at a high rate of knots while data is endlessly transferred to and from the virtual memory section of the HD.

Cost?, - if I'd used the original manufacturer, Dell, it would have been £350, as the required type of memory, RDRAM, is no longer made, but, luckily, there was a good company out there on eBay, who still have a source for good quality RDRAM, - new, not second hand, - and the cost was only £60.

[As I commented to the Dell sales rep, I could buy a decent laptop for £350!]

It could have been even less if I'd put in a lower bid that turned out to be the winning bid, but I wasn't interested in hanging about for the close of the auction, never mind monitoring the progress of the auction, so just bought directly at the price shown.

I just have to comment that it's distinctly weird to be sitting here without the background sound of my HD drive whirring away

In fact, at the moment the noise from the fan is quite annoying

, but I'm sure that I'll soon get over that.

Now away to see if I can find another 1Gb of memory and put in a bid, - my maximum amount of memory is 2Gb.

mb

Montrose Budie · Post by **Montrose Budie** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 3:41 pm

OK, so I guess that I should issue a deep apology to ScotlandsPeople for all the times in the last couple of years when I've a had a right few wee swearies, under my breath of course

, about the speed of their servers.

It wisnae them, it wis ma ******* 'puter and it's lack of memory.

Today's the first time I've done an SP search since my 1Gb memory upgrade, and the site response was brilliant, even for complicated wildcard searches. Even better, whereas it used to take me up to 4 or 5 minutes to set up the printing of an image (this varied, some days it wisnae that bad at maybe a minute or so, but ither days it was pathetically slow), today it's consistently taken no more than 15 secs, or as fast as I could click on the series of options that I use!

Overall response time using the www and various software package, even memory demanding ones such as PowerPoint involving presentations ca. 45Mb, are all vastly better.

mb

Post by **Anne H** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 4:46 pm

That speed sounds amazing and if I wasn't convinced before, I am now. Must upgrade my memory asap.

Regards,
Anne H

Montrose Budie · Post by **Montrose Budie** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 9:37 pm

Anne H wrote:That speed sounds amazing and if I wasn't convinced before, I am now. Must upgrade my memory asap.

Regards,
Anne H

Sooner rather than later advised just in case your type of memory stops being manufactured, and it becomes complicated and/or expensive to locate and purchase. I got around the expense to some extent but it must have taken a couple of hours of phone calls and trawling eBay.........

mb

Falkyrn · Post by **Falkyrn** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 9:10 pm

If you visit Crucial Memory at
http://www.crucial.com/uk/index.aspx?cpe=CHAWKuk

and download their scanner it will analyse your system and tell you

a) what memory you have installed and the number of slots
and
b) what memory can be installed.

You can then check the main site to see if the cost of a memory upgrade is a viable option.

PS using this tool does not commit you to using Crucial's products

Montrose Budie · Post by **Montrose Budie** » Sun Mar 08, 2009 7:53 am

Falkyrn wrote:If you visit Crucial Memory at
http://www.crucial.com/uk/index.aspx?cpe=CHAWKuk

and download their scanner it will analyse your system and tell you............

.....snipped.........

Thought I'd give this tool a try.

Maybe it's because my Dell is quite old, but this scanner got several things wrong.

It reported that I have the maximum memory installed. I don't!, - altho' all the slots are currently filled; but I could take out a pair of 128Mb and replace with a pair of 512Mb to reach my maximum of 2Gb!

It reported that I don't need to install memory in matched pairs. Untrue, I do.

It reported that my computer doesn't support 'ECC' memory. It does, - the pair of 512Mb cards I've just installed are ECC. My manual clearly says that the computer supports both ECC and non-ECC memory.

While the scanner correctly identified my computer and the fact that my memory slots have a pair of 128Mb and a pair of 512Mb cards installed, annoyingly, it didn't identify the exact type of memory, which is vital to know. There are many different types of memory, many not compatible with each other or the system board involved.

Like I said perhaps it's because my Dell is quite old, but this scanner got several things wrong and didn't give me some essential info.

mb

Post by **AndrewP** » Sun Mar 08, 2009 9:42 am

Falkyrn wrote:If you visit Crucial Memory at
http://www.crucial.com/uk/index.aspx?cpe=CHAWKuk

and download their scanner it will analyse your system and tell you...

My HP laptop from 2008 was not on their list. There were other models of the same series, so I had to pick one of them and hope for the best. I think it gave me the right answers (4Gb, upgradeable to 8Gb, recommended as matched pairs).

All the best,

AndrewP

JustJean · Post by **JustJean** » Sun Mar 08, 2009 12:37 pm

Seeking an opportunity to fiddle with things I dinnae understand I clicked on the "crucial" website link. Having a custom built tower which is about a year and a half old now I'm not really certain this site will diagnose it. If I open my device manager it tells me I have a ACPI Uniprocessor PC.....when I turn it on the opening screen tells me I have Biostar something or other

.....any geeks out there care to tell me if I can determine what I currently have for memory?? Not sure the fellow who built this for me is still in the business.....

Best wishes
Jean