Izzy Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 I apologise in advance for the non-guitar content, but after the "microsoft imminent doom" thread I realized ya'll may be able to help me with this: My girlfriend has been wanting to upgrade the RAM on her computer and she's researched the topic. When I got ram I just bought it and stuffed it, but NO not her! She wants 16GB (2x8GB) of RAM (two RAM sticks of 8 GB). She currently has all four RAM slots filled with 2G DDR2 800 DIM RAM sticks. She put in her computer's make & model into a site that spawns recomendations for RAM but they advice 4GB sticks (or less), thus implying that she cannot get 8GB sticks. She's hesitant now to just buy and stick in like I did. So, does the fact that the sites come up with 4G or less mean she can't get more than 4G in the end or can she just buy as much as she wants and replace the 2G RAMs. What kind would be okay for her to get, if she can stuff 16G into her computer? Computer Information: System Manufacturer: eMachines System Model: ET1331G Motherboard Manufacturer: eMachines Motherboard Model: MCP61PM-GM Thanks in advance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbreslauer Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 I apologise in advance for the non-guitar content, but after the "microsoft imminent doom" thread I realized ya'll may be able to help me with this: My girlfriend has been wanting to upgrade the RAM on her computer and she's researched the topic. When I got ram I just bought it and stuffed it, but NO not her! She wants 16GB (2x8GB) of RAM (two RAM sticks of 8 GB). She currently has all four RAM slots filled with 2G DDR2 800 DIM RAM sticks. She put in her computer's make & model into a site that spawns recomendations for RAM but they advice 4GB sticks (or less), thus implying that she cannot get 8GB sticks. She's hesitant now to just buy and stick in like I did. So, does the fact that the sites come up with 4G or less mean she can't get more than 4G in the end or can she just buy as much as she wants and replace the 2G RAMs. What kind would be okay for her to get, if she can stuff 16G into her computer? Computer Information: System Manufacturer: eMachines System Model: ET1331G Motherboard Manufacturer: eMachines Motherboard Model: MCP61PM-GM Thanks in advance. I did some reading up on this System, Motherboard and CPU: it seems that this system board is maxed with (4) 2GB DIMMs. this eMachines system does seem to use a standard atx form factor system board, so that may be an option: or maybe a barebones system that can be filled out with the drives and peripherals she already has. hth, Don Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Izzy Posted December 18, 2012 Author Share Posted December 18, 2012 I did some reading up on this System, Motherboard and CPU: it seems that this system board is maxed with (4) 2GB DIMMs. this eMachines system does seem to use a standard atx form factor system board, so that may be an option: or maybe a barebones system that can be filled out with the drives and peripherals she already has. hth, Don Meaning that it is possible to remove the RAM it has and replace it with aquired RAM of more than 4G? Or alternately get a system that we can fill with the RAM she has plus more RAM plus drivers and all that? Would the later be hard to do, because we're clearly not experts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CowboyBillyBob1 Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 Meaning that it is possible to remove the RAM it has and replace it with aquired RAM of more than 4G? Or alternately get a system that we can fill with the RAM she has plus more RAM plus drivers and all that? Would the later be hard to do, because we're clearly not experts? It seems as though each slot will not accept more than 2GB RAM. The max it will accept is 4X2GB or 8GB total. That should be plenty for just about any app. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabs Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 Yup you can only use 4 x 2gb memory sticks (or two 4gb sticks) (RAM should be used in pairs) Your ET1331G-03w System Specs Memory Type: DDR2 PC2-6400, DDR2, DDR3 (non-ECC) Maximum Memory: 8GB Slots: 4 Also it depends on what type of OS you are using. If its 32 bit it wont use more than 4gb of RAM anyway so getting more is pointless. You can find this out if you go to the Start Button (the windows icon in bottom left).. Right click on Computer and select properties. It should tell you your system type in there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elmer Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 Yup you can only use 4 x 2gb memory sticks (or two 4gb sticks) (RAM should be used in pairs) Your ET1331G-03w System Specs Memory Type: DDR2 PC2-6400, DDR2, DDR3 (non-ECC) Maximum Memory: 8GB Slots: 4 Also it depends on what type of OS you are using. If its 32 bit it wont use more than 4gb of RAM anyway so getting more is pointless. You can find this out if you go to the Start Button (the windows icon in bottom left).. Right click on Computer and select properties. It should tell you your system type in there. This is a thing you should certainly get: OS (Win7 I guess) 64bit ... other wise all above 4gig is wasted money. The ram slots are paired (mostly two white colored and two black colored ...could be blue or red too, depends on the board) Make sure u use the same brand in the pairs (2 the same in the whites, 2 the same in the black ) ... other wise you could get a piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbreslauer Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 Meaning that it is possible to remove the RAM it has and replace it with aquired RAM of more than 4G? Or alternately get a system that we can fill with the RAM she has plus more RAM plus drivers and all that? Would the later be hard to do, because we're clearly not experts? This system board won't use any RAM beyond the 8GB already installed, but the other posts mentioning 64 bit windows are good ones: 64 bit is required to take advantage of any memory above 4GB. Replacing a system board with a newer one is not that difficult, but it is something to read up on in advance. Also, once you start upgrading, things can snowball: you find ways to justify additional upgrades, and so on, and... :) 8GB should be enough memory for most tasks. Don Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChanMan Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 They've covered it Izzy. Is there a performance reason she wants more RAM? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Izzy Posted December 18, 2012 Author Share Posted December 18, 2012 They've covered it Izzy. Is there a performance reason she wants more RAM? Thank you all very much for your input. It is nice to get additional opinions from people rather than internet generators. Regarding the 64 bit thing; She has a 64 bit already, she sais. Too bad she's maxed out already on the RAM unles she replaces the system board. The reason she wanted more RAM was 1. Guild Wars. It runs choppy on her computer and I said, "get a better videocard and more RAM, that may help." . 2. She also sais her computer runs sort of slow. It is slower than mine for sure. She figured more RAM would make a faster computer. Thanks again, guys. Ya'll are the best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tman5293 Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 Thank you all very much for your input. It is nice to get additional opinions from people rather than internet generators. Regarding the 64 bit thing; She has a 64 bit already, she sais. Too bad she's maxed out already on the RAM unles she replaces the system board. The reason she wanted more RAM was 1. Guild Wars. It runs choppy on her computer and I said, "get a better videocard and more RAM, that may help." . 2. She also sais her computer runs sort of slow. It is slower than mine for sure. She figured more RAM would make a faster computer. Thanks again, guys. Ya'll are the best. More RAM will not make it faster. However, if she were to replace the RAM that she has with higher clocked RAM that would increase performance. Although it looks like you're dealing with a DDR2 based board meaning that the RAM is limited to 800MHz max. I'd say that getting a new graphics card is a must. Choppy frame rates in games are almost always caused by a GPU that needs to be upgraded. A word of caution though; if the computer is still running the stock OEM power supply this upgrade may not be possible. It is most likely a 300W power supply with no 6 pin power connector to supply power to a graphics card. I would suggest getting at least a 500W power supply because 300W is no where near enough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Bill Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 It sounds like she has enough power to do what she wants to do. I would be willing to bet that a good system clean up would do the the trick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChanMan Posted December 19, 2012 Share Posted December 19, 2012 Thank you all very much for your input. It is nice to get additional opinions from people rather than internet generators. Regarding the 64 bit thing; She has a 64 bit already, she sais. Too bad she's maxed out already on the RAM unles she replaces the system board. The reason she wanted more RAM was 1. Guild Wars. It runs choppy on her computer and I said, "get a better videocard and more RAM, that may help." . 2. She also sais her computer runs sort of slow. It is slower than mine for sure. She figured more RAM would make a faster computer. Thanks again, guys. Ya'll are the best. EMachines are famous for using shared RAM, meaning part of your RAM is reserved for video processing. This is not an excellent idea for a gaming box.... Your performance issue likely stems from all the competition for the data pathways, and potentially the CPU's attention. A "bits and bytes traffic jam", if you will. Adding a video card and offloading that work from your main board would help, but you'll need to factor in a new power supply, as the system you mentioned comes stock with a 300W. Something else you could try (and considering what was likely given for the PC, it would be less expensive) would be adding an off board sound card. Any traffic you can offload from the main system should provide a performance increase. It IS GW and not GW 2 she's playing, correct? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Septic Posted December 19, 2012 Share Posted December 19, 2012 As has been suggested, the chipset and OS can only address 8GB, but probably the easiest "Hop-up" is to install a SATA SSD drive which will speed up the data transfer rate through the CPU and shared memory as there are no moving parts (It's basically a huge memory chip that replaces a disk drive) The other obvious improvement is to remove ALL non essential software, including operating system add-ons and manufacturer's "Help" software, before going into the CMOS setup on startup and making sure that the "Shared memory" is set to max graphic performance if you're not running a dedicated video card. Adding an "Exception" to your firewall and antivirus to prevent that slowing down all incoming game data also makes a huge difference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff-7 Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 She could also try running the game at close to minimum settings until you figure out some upgrades. Something tells me she's on max. Has she run a cleanup and defrag recently? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buxom Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 Scrap it, buy new parts, build a new one, use 2 sticks of 4, 8GB is really all you'd ever need. 16 is overkill. I'm perfectly satisfied with 6 right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChanMan Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 Scrap it, buy new parts, build a new one, I was trying so hard not to go here.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tman5293 Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 Scrap it, buy new parts, build a new one, use 2 sticks of 4, 8GB is really all you'd ever need. 16 is overkill. I'm perfectly satisfied with 6 right now. This is exactly what I was thinking. However, I do not agree with you about 8GB being all you'll ever need. A year ago I would have agreed with you. I'm running G.SKILL Ripjaws 16GB (4x4GB) @ 1600MHz and I've seen my RAM usage get up around 10GB while running intensive games. Specifically, Crysis 2 with the HD texture pack and the DX11 expansion. Battlefield 3 gets up around 7.5 GB. Basically, if the RAM is there, intensive games and programs will make use of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tazzboy Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 Ram doesn't make the computer go faster. Having a fast CPU does. RAM is Random Access Memory which store and allow the CPU to access easier http://searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com/definition/RAM. What your girlfriend needs to do is do some research on Gaming Computer like at Newegg.com or Tigerdirect.com and see what best suits her needs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RaysEpiphone Posted December 21, 2012 Share Posted December 21, 2012 She's having lag with internet function's like gaming? What sort of web connection does she have? Modem? Router? Hard-wire or wireless? Is there any lagg with loading web page's? I will agree with the statement that 4 gig's of RAM is quite a lot and can do well with game's. Any other games give her lagg? My computer has an Nvidia 400 series card and it doesn't like some game's, before the Dust patch I couldn't run EVE very well (just an example). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Izzy Posted December 21, 2012 Author Share Posted December 21, 2012 She's having lag with internet function's like gaming? What sort of web connection does she have? Modem? Router? Hard-wire or wireless? Is there any lagg with loading web page's? I will agree with the statement that 4 gig's of RAM is quite a lot and can do well with game's. Any other games give her lagg? My computer has an Nvidia 400 series card and it doesn't like some game's, before the Dust patch I couldn't run EVE very well (just and example). Patch? Maybe that's a place to go. We have FAST internet. Cable modem, good stuff. She has a hard time with Sims3 as well (no internet required there). Guild Wars 2 runs choppy, she sais. I'm fairly sure she set the game's requirements to the minimum, that's sort of standard for us when we get new games. I think a cleanup and the latest driver for her videocard would make an improvement, beyond that, she may just chose to get a new puter. Don't think she's the type to take apart and make a new one. That's just intence. Though it seems a bit much to buy a new one just for better gaming. Oh, childrens! Again, thank you all for your advice. Ya'll are some nerdy peeps! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RaysEpiphone Posted December 21, 2012 Share Posted December 21, 2012 Patch? Maybe that's a place to go. We have FAST internet. Cable modem, good stuff. She has a hard time with Sims3 as well (no internet required there). Guild Wars 2 runs choppy, she sais. I'm fairly sure she set the game's requirements to the minimum, that's sort of standard for us when we get new games. I think a cleanup and the latest driver for her videocard would make an improvement, beyond that, she may just chose to get a new puter. Don't think she's the type to take apart and make a new one. That's just intence. Though it seems a bit much to buy a new one just for better gaming. Oh, childrens! Again, thank you all for your advice. Ya'll are some nerdy peeps! Some thing else to look at is how full her hardrive is, if your less than 20 gigs (or so) of free-space then it maybe time to think about an extra drive for saving video, full audio, picture's and suff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Izzy Posted December 23, 2012 Author Share Posted December 23, 2012 Turns out her parents may buy her a new computer. (SPOILED BRAT!) Is Asus a good choice? She was going to go buy an Alienware but Dell bought them out and Dell sucks as costumer service goes so never a Dell again. sorry to resurect the dead thread Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff-7 Posted December 23, 2012 Share Posted December 23, 2012 Asus is a pretty decent economy line of computers, Alienware is good but you're paying a good bit for the name (I own 2 of them, my old desktop and an m15x laptop). Gateway is a pretty good option. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tazzboy Posted December 23, 2012 Share Posted December 23, 2012 Yes Asus is very good brand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChanMan Posted December 24, 2012 Share Posted December 24, 2012 I use Asus motherboards almost exclusively... I'd say their PCs shoud be good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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