Adding more RAM

[Inlovewithnight]

Hi,

I own a Dell Desktop computer which is about 8 years old. Runs Windows XP. I mainly keep it for a backup. It only has 512 mb of RAM. I would like to increase it to 2GB of RAM. Can it be done or is this computer too old?

[caperjack]

yes it wouldbe /could be possible ,make and model of the dell will help determing type of ram it takes ,or you could remove the 512 and get numbers off it ,price will be a factor also,as new ram is cheap but old ram is still a bit pricy retail

[mike_2000_17]

It should be fine. I'm not sure about any particular compatibility issues, but I don't think that a move from 512Mb to 2Gb of RAM on an 8 year old desktop should be a problem. It's a very common "upgrade", or way to give an old computer a second life.

Talking about giving the computer a second life, I would suggest opting for a Linux distribution instead of WinXP. For one, WinXP is being phased out, and you really don't want to have any WinXP computer when even Microsoft doesn't provide security updates, let alone any support whatsoever. Any version of Windows that are more recent is probably not going to run at all on that old computer. With a Linux distro installed, you'll get a modern OS that will run very smoothly on that machine (and there are light-weight distributions of Linux for older hardware), and it's low-maintenance, perfect for secondary usages like backups or home servers.

[sevitsil]

For increasing speed of computer then you can add more ram in to cpu. From that computer speed is increasing.

[caperjack]

sevitsil,just for clarity reasons i will say that CPU means "cential processing unit" [the the tower the motherboard and CPU are housed in ]and you can't add more ram to it ,but you can add more ram to the computer motherboard to increase speed

[Inlovewithnight]

Thank you all for your responses to my post. Think I will try to add more RAM and see what happens. I feel this computer still has some life left in it. Great suggestion about LINUX, I'll check this out also. I also thought that once RAM was increased that a more updated version of Windows could be installed.....I guess not.

Thanks again.

[Reverend Jim]

Microsoft has a Windows 7 Advisory Tool that you can run to see if you can run Windows 7 on your computer. I'm running it on a 6 year old Dell Inspiron 1720 and have had no problems other than with Bluetooth.

[mike_2000_17]

Nice tool ... rolleyes ... to figure out if you can run Windows 7, you need to run this tool, and to run this tool, you need one of the following operating systems:

Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP Service Pack 2
.NET Framework 2.0 or higher if running Windows XP

Needless to say, if you are running any of these systems on your PC, it's a pretty good guess that Windows 7 will run exactly the same as the system you are currently using. Duhh..

[Reverend Jim]

Yeah. Typical Microsoft.

I'm assuming that most people running XP are running at least SP2. I didn't bother to run the tool before I switched to Windows 7. I'm assuming (idiot that I am) that the tool would identify any hardware on the target machine that was not supported (officially) under Windows 7. For example, apparently my embedded Bluetooth does not have a Windows 7 driver although there are apparently ways to wedge the Vista driver in. I was finally able to get it working, however, it was not compatible with my hearing aids. Fortunately the hearing aid company sent me a free USB Bluetooth adaptor. As well, I have a Plextor TV tuner that is not supported under Windows 7.

In a similar vein, a few weeks ago my telephone, TV and Internet all went out (Shaw Cable for all). When I talked to Shaw from a neighbour's phone they asked if I would like to be called when the repairman was on his way. I said "that won't really work, will it" so they said, "how about if we send you an email then?".

[caperjack]

I also thought that once RAM was increased that a more updated version of Windows could be installed.....I guess not

no, it has more to do with other hardware ,the main one being the motherboard and its chipset,and CPU ect ect .

new is nice ,i just built a nice little tower,AMD 6core cpu/4gig ram and a 128gig SSD hardrive ,and is it ever nice a fast compared to the old one i had had ,and it cost less that the first new printer that i bought back in 1998.