RAM Question
May 13, 2020 09:38:55 #
What is the difference between DDR2 and DDR3. Are they interchangeable? I have an older DELL Studio XPS 435 MT. I'm pretty sure it has DDR2. I recently saw DDR3 RAM on Facebook Marketplace for a really good price. My DDR2 RAM 10600, 1.5v, 9-9-9-24. The advertised RAM has the very same. Just wondering if it would work. PS . . I would be adding RAM and not replacing. Thanks
May 13, 2020 09:56:45 #
No, not compatible...The notches are in different places as well...
May 13, 2020 10:07:00 #
rightofattila wrote:
What is the difference between DDR2 and DDR3. Are they interchangeable? I have an older DELL Studio XPS 435 MT. I'm pretty sure it has DDR2. I recently saw DDR3 RAM on Facebook Marketplace for a really good price. My DDR2 RAM 10600, 1.5v, 9-9-9-24. The advertised RAM has the very same. Just wondering if it would work. PS . . I would be adding RAM and not replacing. Thanks
My experience with RAM over the years has taught me several things:
1) Use the same size, brand, DDR type, and speed of RAM in every slot. This minimizes trouble and troubleshooting headaches!
2) Stick to name brand providers like Crucial, Kingston, OWC, etc. who have lifetime warranties. I've had to replace faulty RAM twice. In one instance, I had an improperly designed pair of RAM modules in my old PowerBook G4. Apparently, they were not specified correctly by Kingston for my model, and caused an LCD panel display failure. Apple fixed the display for free, but yanked my RAM modules and shipped them back with a letter explaining how Kingston screwed up. Kingston sent me replacement RAM overnight, on just a phone call! (Problems such as that one are why Apple solders RAM into many of its computers today.)
3) Vacuum out the RAM slots before inserting new RAM modules.
4) Ground yourself with a grounding wrist strap. Work on a static-free mat. Ground the computer chassis, too.
5) While you're in there, clean out the fans and very carefully vacuum out the dust bunnies.
6) While you're in there, consider installing an SSD drive or NVMe module if you're still running an old spinning platter hard drive. SSD is a direct replacement for, and a HUGE improvement over the old 5400 and 7200 RPM hard drives. NVMe and SSD are both solid state devices, but if your computer supports NVMe, it is a much faster choice for mass storage.
May 13, 2020 10:07:35 #
May 13, 2020 10:09:51 #
May 13, 2020 10:19:07 #
burkphoto wrote:
My experience with RAM over the years has taught m... (show quote)
7) And there really is no such thing as too much RAM. Though these days at least 32 GB is probably well adequate.
May 13, 2020 10:27:44 #
lamiaceae wrote:
7) And there really is no such thing as too much RAM. Though these days at least 32 GB is probably well adequate.
The amount of RAM a machine can use is limited. Especially in older machines... My older Dell (Optiplex 9020 MT) has a cap of 32 gb.
May 13, 2020 10:55:10 #
May 13, 2020 12:56:42 #
lamiaceae wrote:
7) And there really is no such thing as too much RAM. Though these days at least 32 GB is probably well adequate.
16GB is a base these days. 32GB lets you run more apps simultaneously, or work with really huge image files, lots of layers of titles and LUTs in video editing, or lots of tracks in audio mixing apps. It lets you run both MacOS and Win10 simultaneously on a Mac, using Parallels Desktop, and not suffer severe performance degradation.
An SSD is no longer a luxury. Both Win 10 and MacOS Catalina REALLY benefit from the speed of SSD or NVMe storage. The difference is dramatic. When your processor is starved for data because it's waiting on an old, slow hard drive, you twiddle your thumbs.
I know that from running a Late 2013 iMac Core i5, specially modified to include a 2TB SSD and 16GB RAM. It is comfortably speedy for use as a home computer and occasional contract projects. (It was slow as molasses — now it is seven times faster when rendering video in Final Cut Pro X, or exporting files from Lightroom Classic — than when it had a 1TB 5400 RPM stock hard drive and 8GB RAM.) If I were in full production mode all the time, I'd get something more recent, such as a 16" MacBook Pro. I'll keep this box until Apple will no longer support it with OS upgrades.
May 13, 2020 13:13:43 #
Ahhh, to think how slow my first 8085 computer was.
Compared to now.
Compared to now.
May 13, 2020 13:44:25 #
rightofattila wrote:
What is the difference between DDR2 and DDR3. Are they interchangeable? I have an older DELL Studio XPS 435 MT. I'm pretty sure it has DDR2. I recently saw DDR3 RAM on Facebook Marketplace for a really good price. My DDR2 RAM 10600, 1.5v, 9-9-9-24. The advertised RAM has the very same. Just wondering if it would work. PS . . I would be adding RAM and not replacing. Thanks
No it won't work.
Go on line to Dell's support site and look up your model, Dell used to have all the specs etc available, hopefully they still do. They even had a list of "upgrades" that could be done. Now some of the things needed may be hard to find, you may have to get used - why, just shear age. The info on your motherboard should also tell you just how much RAM it can take. While there if there are newer versions of the firmware - get that also. We have an old dell my wife uses for e-mail and shopping that will only take 4 GB of RAM max, it has 2 now. I ordered RAM for it to bring it up to 4 GB, same specs-different brand and for some reason it would recognize the first 2 or the second 2 GBs but not both at once. But then when I took out the new RAM it told me I had just cut RAM from 4>2GB. Go figure. I am setting up a newer more powerful machine for her and that old one will be hooked up to a pair of scanners to scan negatives, slides etc (I have about 8-10 file boxes of stuff from both sides of the family.) Then I can play around and try to get it to admit it has 4 GB. Or put in the old motherboard from my desktop that will go up to 32 GB. If I can figure out how and the MB still works - it got replaced as a major upgrade/rebuild of the machine when it was acting up. And rather than repair I took advantage to rebuild to much higher specs.
May 13, 2020 14:23:40 #
Thanks to everyone . . . great answers and advice. Speaking of old computers: My first computer for home was an 8086 built by Wang. It had an 80 MB hard drive and 4 MB of RAM. (and it was considered very powerful at the time) RAM back in those days was $100 per MB. Microsoft Office came on 24 3 1/2 inch discs, took forever to install. Most hardware and some software installations required you to edit the autoexec.bat file. We've come a long way.
May 13, 2020 14:48:29 #
Mine was an old Atari that used floppy discs for its hard drive. I thought I was in heaven when I got an IBM PCXT.... a 10mb hard drive...
May 13, 2020 15:38:51 #
Screamin Scott wrote:
Mine was an old Atari that used floppy discs for its hard drive. I thought I was in heaven when I got an IBM PCXT.... a 10mb hard drive...
I go back to an Apple IIe that I used with add-in cards to run dissolve controllers for slide shows. It had Apple DOS 3.3 (and then ProDOS with AppleWorks 1.1), two 143K 5.25" floppy drives, 64K RAM, and a green screen monitor. 6502 processor ran at 1.05 MHz! We added a 1MB memory board and a "TransWarp Accelerator" card (65C02 running at 3.5 MHz), and thought we could run a small country!
Looking back, I'm amazed that thing could control 15 slide projectors and a dozen auxiliary devices. Ahh, the days of multi-image slide shows...
May 13, 2020 15:52:25 #
burkphoto wrote:
I go back to an Apple IIe that I used with add-in ... (show quote)
Back in the 74-75 school I taught basic photography for that one year. The local camera store gave us a lot of support and they sponsored the traveling Kodak Slide/Film show at a local college - it was great!
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