AMD Athlom xp 1700 help

[AZTLAN(guess)]

Need some help, want to upgrade memory Ram have 512 mb, geforce fx 5200 256 mb agp X8 want to upgrade some more, not sure how much more can upgrade , not sure what type i need if I need DDR SDDR , also i was told I would need a pc2100 or pc 2300
my system is AMD athlom xp 1700 1.47 GHz
Please help
Thnak you

[Marcin]

what's your motherboard ?

[thomsonicus]

yes, tell us the model of your motherboard; also, tell us what do you use the computer for. If it's games I would recommend changing your graphics card first.
Tell us more details of your computer (the more the better), even your power supply may matter!

[debs3759]

[AZTLAN (guess )]

Thanks for the quick response, my mother b is an Asrock one of the K7V model not sure the whole model #, I know my video card is not the best, I don't do much gaming if I do I will use it for world war II plane symulators, I do some video and most photo editing. All i want is to speed up my system , the mother board has two blue slots and 2 black ones where there is the one ram of 512 mb.
Thanks for the help

[AZTLAN (guess)]

Just checked mother board is Asrock K7VM2 model, figuere out what type of ram i need the new problem i got mother board slot for viedeo card I'm using is AGP X4, and video card that jsut installed is AGP X8, and it seems the performance of video is not smooth at all
Help
Thanks

[Cobracon]

The best place to find the type of answers you're looking for is USUALLY the manufacturer's website. This is the link for the board you have: http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=K7VM2 . Once there, you'll notice the manufacturer recommends a 2X or 4X AGP card. It appears the 8X card you have installed could well be the cause of your video problems. The type memory you need is also spelled out.

While at the site, you can download a copy of the motherboard owner's manual. I recommend you download and thoroughly familiarize yourself with the manual to get an idea of what makes your motherboard tick. Some manuals are very detailed, some are close to useless. The only way to find out is to read yours.

[D.8080]

[AZTLAN]

I was told by one asrcok tehc support rep, that my mother board is out of service no updates no drivers available anynmore, and even to use the new memorey ram that sell on stores now to updgrade to 1G they probably aren't compatible anymore if this is true that sucks
help again
Thx
AZTLAN

[Cobracon]

I failed to mention that sometimes the 'tech' department for some manufacturers is USELESS also.

Go here: http://www.crucial.com/index.aspx?gclid=cmjip_zyszicfqkwpaodyiunma , click on "Scan My System", and the RAM that Crucial.com recommends is GUARANTEED to work if you buy exactly what they list.

The SDRAM (168-pin) RAM is more than likely going to be more expensive and slower than the DDR (186-pin) RAM. Either one is going to cost more and have lower performance than newer DDR2 RAM, which your motherboard doesn't support.

Also note, buying memory from Crucial is expensive no matter WHAT kind you buy, but it's GUARANTEED to work. It may not be compatable with your current RAM so you may need to buy 2 sticks and remove your current RAM.

If you haven't done it yet, you still need to download the motherboard manual because the tips and instructions still apply no matter how long your board has been discontinued.

One last thought. If this RAM and video card update is being done so you can play WW II flight simulator games, you'd better check out the system requirements for the games before you spend a dime on upgrades. To my knowledge, all of the games listed for sale online have a 'system requirements' section so you can check to see if your system is capable of playing the game. Based on the limited information you've provided about your machine, you'll be hard pressed to play any of the newer (within the last few years) games adequately, if at all.

[AZTLAN]

Thank you very much for help, and links, now i installed video card already and got and older video game called iron aces it works fine so far, yes i do check the games requirements thanks for input.
RAM i haven't updgrade yet but definetly will check link for upgrade.
I was unable to download manual from site, i do have adobe reader new version, but when opened page for manual apears a blank page.
Thanks again

[jrmunro]

[AZTLAN]

Thanks a lot everybody.
In some sites for RAM they state that DDR PC2100 is equivalent to PC 3200 and are compatable of each other and i can use either or is this true.
What is the diference betwen 1600 and 2100 DDR
Thanks again

[jrmunro]

[Cobracon]

The following is a partial quote from a posting on C/Net Forums:


What is PC100, PC133, PC1600, PC2100, PC2700, and PC3200 memory? PC100 and PC133 are types of SDRAM. PC1600, PC2100, PC2700 and PC3200 are types of DDR. They are all DIMM's in physical construction. The type of memory, SDRAM or DDR, that can be used in a computer is a characteristic of the motherboard. Most motherboards support either SDRAM or DDR, but not both. However, there are some motherboards that allow either, but not both at the same time. SDRAM and DDR use different types of memory slots for installation. The numbers identify the FSB speed of the RAM.

For SDRAM:
PC100 memory runs at a FSB speed of 100MHz
PC133 memory runs at a FSB speed of 133MHz

For DDR:
PC1600 memory runs at a FSB speed of 200MHz
PC2100 memory runs at a FSB speed of 266MHz
PC2700 memory runs at a FSB speed of 333MHz
PC3200 memory runs at a FSB speed of 400MHz

What is the front side bus? The front side bus (FSB) is the connection between the processor and memory. It's speed is expressed in MHz. The higher the MHz, the faster the FSB. The maximum speed of the FSB is a characteristic of the motherboard.

For SDRAM:
100 FSB processor should be used with PC100
133 FSB processor should be used with PC133

For DDR:
200 FSB processor should be used with PC1600 RAM
266 FSB processor should be used with PC2100 RAM
333 FSB processor should be used with PC2700 RAM
400 FSB processor should be used with PC3200 RAM

How much faster is one memory over another? In raw terms, PC133 SDRAM memory is 33% faster than PC100 SDRAM memory. A similar statement can be made for PC2100 DDR memory and PC1600 DDR memory. However, the overall system performance you actually observe will more likely be in the range of 5% to 10%. That's because the overall system performance is affected by other bottlenecks at the hard drive, video card and other peripherals. And computer operations that occur entirely within the processor are unaffected by the speed of the FSB. CAS2 yields a similar improvement range over CAS3. In theory, PC2100 DDR memory is twice as fast as PC133 SDRAM memory, but in practice the SDRAM motherboards make double-use of the 133MHz FSB speed so the actual overall system performance improvement given by PC2100 DDR over PC133 SDRAM is again in the single-digit percentages. Nevertheless, with computer memory being such a troublesome bottleneck on system performance and with the cost difference as low as it is, it's best to go with the faster memory.