Will more memory benifit my Laptop?

[blue-eye-boy]

Hey, someone told me the other day I can get better speed, and less freezes with programs like Photoshop, and so on.
Well, I have a:

Fujitsu Siemens
1.60Ghz Celeron M
1gig ram
and according to this, there is 2 memory "sticks" installed.
Running XP Home, sp2

Now, I found out that the max memory I can have in my laptop, is 2 gig. If you say it will help to get more memory, must I get like 2 X 1gig, or can I just buy one 2 gig?

Or wont more memory make things faster or smoother?

 

[HavocXphere]

It'll help, but its not the main limiting factor imo. I'd say the 1.6 Celeron is more of a problem.

I'd start by hunting for the source of the freezes. Start with memtest86.

 

[.Froot.]

You should have 2x512MB sticks installed at present (some manufacturers use 1x1GB, but this is not too common).
Yes, another gig of RAM will speed up your computer if you use memory intensive applications (no, solitaire does not count).

 

[.Froot.]

It'll help, but its not the main limiting factor imo. I'd say the 1.6 Celeron is more of a problem.

I'd start by hunting for the source of the freezes. Start with memtest86.

You always beat me to the cherry

 

[hj2k_x]

It'll help, but its not the main limiting factor imo. I'd say the 1.6 Celeron is more of a problem.

I'd start by hunting for the source of the freezes. Start with memtest86.

I'd agree. 1GB RAM is more than enough for XP. It is that CPU that is the bottleneck.

 

[.Froot.]

I'd agree. 1GB RAM is more than enough for XP. It is that CPU that is the bottleneck.

But 2GB is better. From both a professional viewpoint and personal experience I would say so. However, yes, the CPU is a little slow for the ultimate experience.

 

[hj2k_x]

But 2GB is better. From both a professional viewpoint and personal experience I would say so. However, yes, the CPU is a little slow for the ultimate experience.

Indeed, up to a point, more RAM is always going to be worthwhile Specially with the prices coming down on RAM as they are at the moment.

 

[.Froot.]

Indeed, up to a point, more RAM is always going to be worthwhile Specially with the prices coming down on RAM as they are at the moment.

Obviously. I would say that anyone doing more than type the odd document should have 2GB of RAM in their system. Especially with the RAM-happy Windows. Further than that, obviously if you don't use it then it is a waste. 2GB of 533/667 RAM for a laptop costs around R400 the last time I checked. I paid R600 sometime last year for Kingston.

 

[hj2k_x]

Obviously. I would say that anyone doing more than type the odd document should have 2GB of RAM in their system. Especially with the RAM-happy Windows. Further than that, obviously if you don't use it then it is a waste. 2GB of 533/667 RAM for a laptop costs around R400 the last time I checked. I paid R600 sometime last year for Kingston.

Yip. A lot of people do seem to just use their laptops as email-checkers and word-processors. For this, you can get away with a Celeron processor and even 512MB RAM.

The more intensive your needs get after that, the more RAM you should throw at it.

For R400, that is about the cheapest upgrade in terms of performance vs price that you can get

 

[.Froot.]

Yip. A lot of people do seem to just use their laptops as email-checkers and word-processors. For this, you can get away with a Celeron processor and even 512MB RAM.

The more intensive your needs get after that, the more RAM you should throw at it.

For R400, that is about the cheapest upgrade in terms of performance vs price that you can get

At R400 it sure is.

 

[killadoob]

more memory will help alot but as havoc says your cpu is a slow one

no doubt spending money on more ram will help and download xp 3 for xp

 

[AirWolf]

Yip. A lot of people do seem to just use their laptops as email-checkers and word-processors. For this, you can get away with a Celeron processor and even 512MB RAM.

The more intensive your needs get after that, the more RAM you should throw at it.

For R400, that is about the cheapest upgrade in terms of performance vs price that you can get

Going from 512Mb to 1.5 Gb of RAM made a huge difference on my laptop. Mine also has a celeron but it is slightly faster at 1.73Ghz and I'm running Vista Home Basic (dual booted with Ubuntu).

 

[SecretCode]

Yes, 1GB is enough for XP, and basic office apps, mail and web surfing one page at a time.

If you do photo editing, or especially if you surf the web with tabs and have lots of pages open at a time, you should go to 2GB.

 

[Ou grote]

Yes, 1GB is enough for XP, and basic office apps, mail and web surfing one page at a time.

If you do photo editing, or especially if you surf the web with tabs and have lots of pages open at a time, you should go to 2GB.

+1

If u want Vista, then go for 2 gigs - But Vista will chomp that Celeron anyway.

 

[.Froot.]

+1

If u want Vista, then go for 2 gigs - But Vista will chomp that Celeron anyway.

+2

Vista will have your Celeron for lunch.

 

[bdt]

Fujitsu Siemens
1.60Ghz Celeron M

..WHICH (model nr please) F-S notebook? Y'see, it may well be possible to upgrade from the Celery CPU but we'll need full info before knowing that ..maybe show us a HWiNFO screenie of the CPU info? DL link is here What I'm looking for here is whether you can take a T-series CPU.

1gig ram

We know it's 2x 512MB, but is it DDR or DDR2? ..memory section info please!

Running XP Home, sp2[/I][/B]I'd advise patching with the (pre XP3 at any rate) hibernate patch once you upgrade ..but then I tend to be overly [-]paranoid[/-] cautious!

Or wont more memory make things faster or smoother?

I'd say we've conclusively answered this one ...and if you're on DDR2 memory, 2x 1gig is approaching trivial cost - hell, I'm dropping another gig in my gf's lappy because it IS that cheap!

 

[dequadin]

A agree with previos comments adding RAM is the cheapest way to get better performance, and since you don't have the ultimate processing power there I'd go for the max it will take!

 

[Tun@]

What the guys are saying about the CPU being the limiting factor i think is pretty correct,I got
LG F1 series notebook
1.67 Ghz Core 2 Duo
1GB Ram(2 x 512)

Changed it over to 2GB Ram(2 x 1GB) and while i know it improved it some i don't think it was a mindblowing improvement.
This was on Vista Home Prem

With Vista's performance baseline score thingy it shows its the onboard graphics that's the bottleneck before the CPU tho.
This notebook went from a score of 2.8 to only 3.0 with the extra 1GB of Ram

 

[.Froot.]

Well so what was your lowest score on your computer?

 

[Tun@]

Processer@ 4.7
Memory Ram@ 4.5
Graphics@ 3.1
Gaming Graphics @ 3.0
Primary HDrive @ 5.2

Thats with the 2GB of ram in it