Computer Advice: RAM upgrade
 

Hi girls and boys, hope you are all well.

My laptop, a Toshiba Satellite Pro A40, is a sturdy beast. But its patheticly slow.

So I figured it would benefit from getting a RAM upgrade from its current 256 MB to 1GB. But I know nothing about upgrading memory, so I need some advice;

Whats a good product? Is 1GB too much? How is it done? How much can I expect to pay?

Ta

Matt

Re: Computer Advice: RAM upgrade
 

go to crucial.com/uk

its the best place, put in the comp type and they send you memory that they guarantee will work with your comp, free delivery i think too.

Re: Computer Advice: RAM upgrade
 

Go to Crucial Memory and use there system scanner, or select your laptop from the drop down boxes. It will tell you what you need, the prices and what your laptop can take. it's a very good site.

You can never have enough memory in my opinion.

EDIT: See, if I'd had more memory I'd have beaten TSM to it ;)

Re: Computer Advice: RAM upgrade
 

you can apparently, tooo much slows down the comp under certain circumstances, also for a laptop its a problem as when it needs to hibernate more data needs to be written to disk before its turned off.

No a biggy though. Just get 1GB total ram or more at least.

Re: Computer Advice: RAM upgrade
 

Ok, thanks guys. I saw this website, but I'm always iffy about buying from things I havnt heard of.

Matt

Re: Computer Advice: RAM upgrade
 

Depends on the OS too, Old windows 98 would only address about 512 mb of ram, and I think XP's best is a max of 2GB. Some laptops will only support a limited amount of memory, due to physical and hardware constraints, but the website should tell you that. I tend to use the memory scanner to find out the memory model number and then have a search about on ebay and stuff, then you can get it for about half the price.

Re: Computer Advice: RAM upgrade
 

I used the memory scanner at crucial.com, it tells me that i have 256 mb in one slot, with another slot free. It then tells me i can stick in 1 gb in the free slot, or stick in two 1 gb wotsits (replacing the 256 mb)

I'll just stick in 1 x 1gb, thats £60. Quite reasonable I think, i was expecting it to cost a fair bit more

Only thing is

how to get the memory in. What size hammer?

Matt

Re: Computer Advice: RAM upgrade
 

little screw fixed door underneath, then slip yer stick in at a slight angle (ooh-eer) and push it down flat till the little clips either side latch on.

EDIT: there's probably a little picture on the door flap thingy you want to unscrew, it's likely a rectangle with little legs coming out

EDIT 2: you'll want a small-ish philips head screw driver for the A40 if I remember correctly

EDIT 3: it'll only go in one way, there's a little notch on the contact side of the memory stick that's slightly off-centre, if it don't fit, don't force it :D

Re: Computer Advice: RAM upgrade
 

Next to the battery slot?

Matt

Re: Computer Advice: RAM upgrade
 

Did it give you the memory model number?