Increasing RAM
 

I have a Packard Bell desktop PC which, if possible, I'd like to upgrade.
The processor is Intel Core i3 CPU, 540 @ 3.07ghz, installed memory (RAM) 3GB, 64bit operating system.

My question is can I upgrade the RAM to say 1 terabyte without having to upgrade anything else, and if so, how do I establish what will fit the PC ?

1tb of ram ? No desktop computer can do that !

What are you doing with box that 3gb is not enough ?

My guess is that the lousy i3 processor may be your issue

If you can come up with the exact model name, there are plenty of places (including here) that will tell you how much RAM you can put in. At a guess, you could go to 4GB which would speed things up a little simply because of the way most motherboards address memory, but you may be stuck at 3 GB. This sounds like an older system. In reality, you might get most benefit simply by checking out what unnecessary stuff starts when Windows starts, and stopping that if you can.

Dell Precision Tower 7910 Video Editing Workstation | Dell UK

Yes, I'm bored.

Go here: Welcome to Crucial UK GBP Store Organization

and run their "scan your system" tool.

Guess it was inevitable someone would do it at some point !

Although it seems even Dell themselves are confused, as the tech specs page says

I need to install software that requires 2GB RAM with 5GB free hard disk space.
If I don't understand how RAM works, forgive me !

RAM is the working memory - your system has 3GB installed so meets the 2GB requirement of the program you mention.

Hard drive space is for storage and you'll almost certainly have the 5GB free that the program requires.

In Windows Explorer find your C: drive, right click on it, then click on Properties - it'll tell you how much free space your hard drive has.

dc, as le Pingouin says, you're probably fine if your hard disk isn't almost full.

Maybe not.

2GB of FREE storage is required, that is what is left after his operating system is loaded and running.

It is most unusual for any motherboard to max out at an odd number. 3GB is an odd number. So this system can probably be increased.

It will take a knowledgeable person about 30 seconds to decide, once the covers are off.

Or, download and run Belarc Advisor, from:

Belarc Advisor

it will inform the user of how many memory slots are on the motherboard and which slots are populated with what size memory modules.

This is a cut and paste from running it my system

Thanks all. I have increased the RAM to 7GB and will make another change next week with a further 1GB. Performance appears to be much improved now.

By all means add the extra GB of RAM but unless you're getting it very cheaply be aware you're unlikely to get much extra in the way of performance for your money.

Temporary solution is to plug in an otherwise unused memory stick of suitable capacity and ask the HAL to use it, works with Win7 I believe?

Means you don't have to open the case with earth lead strap on wrist and try fitting new modules.

Lots of info in whatever search engine you use regarding the use of memory sticks for short-term RAM increase.

I think you're referring to ReadyBoost. That's a different thing: a cache for hard drives other than SSD. If you mean using USB for pagefile.sys (i.e. moving the virtual memory), that's also possible. My experience has been it's usually not worth the effort, but sometimes it is :-) But with USB 3, maybe it's worth a revisit and I may fart around with this on one of my slow machines.

But you can't stick a thumbdrive in and simply extend the addressable system RAM with some voodoo-like incantation.