RAM update
 

Hi, my 8 year old Dell Dimension 8200 runs on 512Mb DDR RAM, which means it's really struggling now. Have tried to source an increase to 1Gb, but have been quoted around £150 for this, as DDR RAM is a rare animal these days - is there any alternative?

There's an awful lot of DDR Ram for sale on E-Bay for next to nothing.

That is a problem with Dell. I don't know how true it is for RAM, but much of the hardware is unique to them.

I upgraded my Dell Dimension 3000 to 2gb from 500mb for a lot less than that, using 2x1gb sticks from 7dayshop.com - Online shopping made easy !

They also provide a handy search facility to make sure you get the right RAM. Be very careful on ebay - there's lots selling double density stuff where it's not suitable.

I agree with gg that eBay is the way to go - certainly a shed load cheaper than £150!

boguing also has a point as your system appears to use RDRAM & not SDRAM (commonly known as DDR) according to this : Documentation

It would be worth opening the box to find out exactly what you have & how many modules.

Search on eBay for 1gb rdram. I think you need PC800-40 as the documentation mentions 40ns or better for the speed but I'd buy to match what you have.

here's an E-Bay example of exactly what you need:

DELL PC800-40 Rambus Rdram 2GB ELPIDA Memory512MB*4pcs on eBay (end time 25-Jan-11 20:52:23 GMT)

Many thanks, Gentlemen - as usual PPrune wins!

If you can find them you might as well go for a 1 Gb modual they are about 13 quid last time I got a DDR2 . YOu will have 2 open slots and the other one should be able to take a a 1 Gb or 2Gb but you will have to check.

I have just done this upgrade for a mate and the change in performance improvement makes you look a whizz at tweaking the performance of a computer. I just stuck a 1GB and it makes the thing fly now that its not using the swap file just to get the OS loaded.

The steps you should take are:

1) go to www.belarc.com/free_download.html

and get a profile of your system

2) go to www.crucial.com, let it scan your system and make recommendations.

I did this, took Crucial's advice, ordered more RAM from them (a matched pair, very important) installed it, worked first time, PC now quite a bit faster with multiple windows open.

One satisfied customer (me) !

P.S. While you have the box open, give it a clean out. My cooling fans looked like they had flown thru volcanic ash.

I recently got 4 x 512 MB Rambus RD-RAM modules for my father, total £62.50 altogether, via ebay. He had been quoted about £150 for 2 x 512 MB modules.

Rambus is still a LOT more expensive than standard DDR(n) RAM, but not THAT much more!

SD

I have used www.crucial.com and am very satisfied.

Since your PC is 8 years old, have you considered a replacement PC? There's no point throwing money at something that's that old.

Hi Mike-Bracknell, have not considered replacing it yet, as it does the things we need and dosh is a bit tight at the mo'.