http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ How-To Geek Forums Topic: Newby Needs Help with Memory Upgrade - What to Buy en Fri, 09 Jan 2009 03:59:18 +0000 http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/newby-needs-help-with-memory-upgrade-what-to-buy#post-44842 Sat, 30 Aug 2008 19:40:24 +0000 ScottW 44842@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>Cifara, hi and welcome. There are definitely pitfalls. According to the specs at Dell, your system has a max memory of 2 GB. Anyway, that is plenty for XP and a 32-bit OS can only use slightly more than 3 GB. The 200 MHz number is a clock speed, which is not a measure of memory speed. PC-3200 is the type of memory and that specifies the DIMM type including timings. You may have heard of this memory call DDR400 which is a marketing term. You can learn the basics of memory, DRAM DIMMs and DDR at wikipedia:<br /> <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR_SDRAM'>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR_SDRAM</a> </p> http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/newby-needs-help-with-memory-upgrade-what-to-buy#post-44798 Sat, 30 Aug 2008 14:04:06 +0000 jonhill987 44798@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p><a href='http://crucial.com/'>http://crucial.com/</a></p> <p>This site has a scanner that can tell you what the best stuff your computer can handle is.</p> <p>They are also quite cheap. </p> http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/newby-needs-help-with-memory-upgrade-what-to-buy#post-44795 Sat, 30 Aug 2008 13:49:55 +0000 cifara 44795@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>Here's a follow up question: Is the memory speed a maximum speed for that memory, or must this be specifically matched? I'm assuming that the 200 mhz that my current memory runs at is determined by the chipset on my machine, but I don't find much in the way of new memory rated that slow. Will 400 mhz memory work for me? </p> http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/newby-needs-help-with-memory-upgrade-what-to-buy#post-44786 Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:25:37 +0000 cifara 44786@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>I have a Dell Demention 3000 that's a few years old running XP and it's starting to get pretty slow. If done all of the virus scans, etc. and think it's probably time to upgrade my memory. I currently has a 256MB DDR (PC3200) in each of its 2 slots running at 200 Mhz (max supported), data width 64. I can go as high as 4G, and need to know what to look for so I know I'm buying the correct form memory to work in my box. I've never bought memory before, but can see there's a lot to know before making a purchase.</p> <p>What pitfalls am I looking at? Thanks. </p>