My Mum's been complaining that her fairly new Dell C521 PC is quite slow, which is understandable as it's running Vista Home Premium on a 20" LCD, but with only integrated graphics and 1GB of RAM (was a bargain PC though!). Therefore, I'm looking at adding more RAM to it when I'm up there at Xmas. It's got 2x512MB DDR PC5300 already, would it be best to add a single 1GB DIMM, or 2x512MB? Reason I ask is because I've heard of four sticks causing timing problems etc, but at the same time I don't want to lose dual channel because it'd probably cause the graphics performance to suffer (which when running Aero, isn't a good thing). The CPU is an Athlon X2 4000+, if that changes things. Thanks for any help.
Get two sticks, and then she can have it still in dual-channel (as long as there are two slots free of course and the existing two are filled with 2 512mb sticks).
Another vote for grabbing another two sticks. Far fewer problems with matching sticks than odd sizes etc imo! RwD
Excellent, thanks a lot guys, I'll find a decent 2x512 kit for it then. Should help to speed the system up quite nicely, because aside from the RAM, it's a damn nice machine for what it cost (£350 with a 20" Dell LCD).
One thing i woudl suggest is having a look at the timings on the current ram and finding a similar set. No point spending more then you need to for faster timings which wont be used. And it should help make it even more compatible. RwD
Yep, got my Mum to send me CPUz screenshots the other day, so I should be able to find stuff that matches fairly well. Kingston or Corsair Value stuff should do the trick.
