TravelMate 3212NWXMi - Urgent RAM Upgradation...!!!

Respected nerds, techs, geeks and dear fellow members,

After months and years of waiting and speculation; I (poor soul who managed to purchase laptop first time in life) purchased one laptop few months back - TravelMate 3212NWXMi -

Presently by default the laptop came with -

1. 60 GB Hard Disk
2. 256 MB DDR II

Now I am finding that both of the above is posing as a terrible constraint in my use of laptop.

The laptop is terribly slowly and I find it very diffcult to use in reading word documents; PDFs etc...

I want to upgrade RAM as Maximum as possible...

From my preliminary analysis; what appears to me is that there may be two slots and maximum each slot can take 1 GB each...(I may be wrong)...

Few Questions in context of RAM Upgradation:

1. Is it wise to go for 1 GB each slot so that laptop is having 2 GB RAM...????

2. Does RAM of 2 GB will really boost speed of laptop like desktop...????

3. Which company (like transcend; hynix; zion etc etc; I am not sure) should i purchase these two RAM 1 GB each chip...????

4. Is there any compatibility issue of RAM with acer laptop model 3212NWXMi - I mean does it have to be of any particular specification....??? OR any RAM from any company would do...??? (This is MOST MOST IMPORTANT query...plz answer in detail).???

5. Does DDR (DDR 1) and DDR 11 really vary significantly in speed...???

Any help / advice / suggestion is more than welcome....Plz reply to my above questions...!!!!!

Best regards

Sunando Ghosh
Kolkata India

sunandoghosh at gmail dot com

Most Most IMP Question:

Is there any compatibility issue of RAM with acer laptop model 3212NWXMi - I mean does it have to be of any particular specification....??? OR any RAM from any company would do...??? (This is MOST MOST IMPORTANT query...plz answer in detail).???

I know certainly that I have asked too too many questions but then I most humbly rqeuest to plz plz come forward and give ur valuable / advice / opinion as I WILL BE BASING MY ENTIRE DECISION BASED ON REPLIED HERE....

Thanks for taking time to read this long post and possibly taking time to reply and sharing ur valuable wisdom...its truly appreciated....

Hi Sunando,

I have upgraded my ACER TRAVELMATE 3213NWXMi from 60GB HDD to SEAGATE 160GB (5400 RPM) HDD and increased RAM capacity also. By default this lappy comes with 256MB RAM. There will be one more slot free and you can add TRANSCEND DDR2 1GB (533 MHz) RAM. I guess this is enough to get the performance you are expecting. Both will cost around Rs. 6000. where RAM will cost you Rs. 1300 and HDD will cost you Rs. 4700.

My Lappy is working fine for Vista without any problems. And one more thing you can use your present 60GB HDD as external USB HDD and for that you need to purchase one cover which will give interface to USB port and it will cost just Rs. 150.

If you have any doubts you can mail me on avinash.avin29@gmail.com or avinash.ksg@indiatimes.com.

Thanks and Regards.
Avinash KS