ive got an older R51 IBM laptop. needs a big time upgrade cuz its sloooooooooow.

http://www.crucial.com/store/mpartspecs.aspx?mtbpoid=F6114772A5CA7304
is what i am looking at, of course not for that price, found it on newegg.com for like $55.

would i benefit from 2 1GB sticks? or just stick with 1 because its an older lappy and might lag or whatever.

1/23/2008 11:15:30 AM

wel i guess that site itself answered my own Q

Quote :

"Q. How much memory can my computer handle? A: 2048MB. Adding the maximum amount of memory will improve performance and help extend the useful life of your system as you run increasingly demanding software applications in the future. "

1/23/2008 11:21:21 AM

evenly distributing your RAM over multiple sticks will give better theoretical performance than one large stick.
But for a PC that old that uses DDR1, any upgrade will help, and the configuration probably won't be noticeable. Just do whatever is cheaper (sucks for you DDR1 is about 3x as expensive as DDR2 right now)

1/23/2008 11:21:26 AM

yeah, i hate the price.

the title meant 2 1GB sticks, or 1 1GB stick.

i may just go with 2 1GB sticks

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145068
$60, not $55

.

[Edited on January 23, 2008 at 11:26 AM. Reason : ]

1/23/2008 11:24:30 AM

It might not recognize individual sticks larger than 1GB. My old dell could handle up to 512 MB but you could not use a single 512 mb stick.

1/23/2008 7:07:30 PM

damn it.

so my computer is screwed i think..

it keeps resetting itself and blue screen of death comes, then resets and on and on.

looks like ill be sending this memory back and looking to get a new computer

1/23/2008 10:59:26 PM

this is after installing the new RAM? Crucial is usually very good. they'll replace it

1/23/2008 11:23:46 PM

no, i just ordered the ram.

my laptop has been real slow. i think it just has 512 ram in it from a few years ago.

the other day it fell on its side from near 2 feet up. surprisingly it worked with no probs.

then the screen was acting funny and i took it home and backed my stuff up. the backing up process was horrible because the computer is just reallllly slow. and thats why i wanted an upgrade.

but not it just crapped the bed. so we'll see what happens.

1/23/2008 11:36:34 PM

oh... if it fell, then it's almost certainly the Hard Drive that's the problem. In that case, if you can get it to boot, back up all your data ASAP on an external drive if you're not done yet. If the HDD is damaged, no amount of RAM is going to help.....

[Edited on January 23, 2008 at 11:44 PM. Reason : .]

1/23/2008 11:42:44 PM

well dang. so it works now.

the CD drive was partially sticking out. i pushed it in and it would pop out. so i gave it a little umph and its in. the computer works.

i think it was the cd rom drive that kept screwing it up.

but that fall worries me.

these ibm laptop have the shock detection on them with accelerometer (from what ive heard). so my hard drive may be ok

1/23/2008 11:46:19 PM

Eh, those things reduce the chance of harddrive failure from falls but they don't eliminate it. Also, a fucked up cd-rom drive shouldn't cause what you were describing. It could have been something loose on the motherboard though.

Anyways, back up what you can to be sure- consider it working again to be someone up there liking you and giving you a chance to do so.

1/24/2008 5:26:06 AM