VDPD2005 Posted February 28, 2014 Posted February 28, 2014 Hey everyone, I could use a little advice. I am upgrading an old computer ('03ish), a dell dimension 2400. I don't have the service tag #. I am going to upgrade the CPU and RAM. The CPU I've pretty much got picked out. I'll get this one. The RAM I'm having trouble with. According to Speccy, the PC currently has pc3200 200mhz (running at 132mhz). The chipset is i845G. The motherboard is model 0F5949. According to the chipset wiki, the chipset supports pc2100 266mhz or pc2700 333mhz. Is it me or are the existing chipset and RAM incompatible? To upgrade should I be buying the existing pc3200 200mhz specs (with more capacity, obviously) or should I go with pc2700 333mhz? Thanks guys Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
EuroFight Posted February 28, 2014 Posted February 28, 2014 PC2700 has always been the ideal for me with older systems, seems to work with the majority of configurations Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
IVIYTH0S Posted February 28, 2014 Posted February 28, 2014 crucial.com is amazing at finding compatible memory Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
VDPD2005 Posted February 28, 2014 Posted February 28, 2014 (edited) These are definitely helpful tips, but the main question here is if the chipset says it supports pc2100 or pc2700, why is pc3200 considered compatible? It doesn't seem that they are, going off of the chipset specs. Could this explain why it is running at 132mhz instead of 200? Edited February 28, 2014 by VDPD2005 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpikeSoprano Posted February 28, 2014 Posted February 28, 2014 It's mot the speed of the ram that you should be concerned with (2700 vs 3200 ) it's the capacity of it, some older mb's will not work with larger size sticks. A few I have worked on would not boot with anything over 1gb sticks so the more info you can get on that mb the better idea you will have on how high a ram stick it will take. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
VDPD2005 Posted February 28, 2014 Posted February 28, 2014 Yup, it supports 2Gb max, so that is what I am going with. I'd like to have the fastest though and at this point I just don't know if that is 2700 or 3200 in terms of compatibility. It obviously works with 3200 now, but only at 132mhz so I'm thinking incompatibility (maybe). Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpikeSoprano Posted February 28, 2014 Posted February 28, 2014 (edited) The mb is auto clocking it to 2700 speed , so you can use 3200 but there will be no advantage to it, if you can find 2700 sticks I would go with those.Hope this helps ! edit> as VDP pointed out they seem to under clocking to 2100 speeds, so the 2700 ram may just run at the rated speed. Edited February 28, 2014 by SpikeSoprano Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
IVIYTH0S Posted February 28, 2014 Posted February 28, 2014 The mb is auto clocking it to 2700 speed , so you can use 3200 but there will be no advantage to it, if you can find 2700 sticks I would go with those.Hope this helps !I'd reckon you'd save little to nothing getting 2700 instead these days though lol Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
VDPD2005 Posted February 28, 2014 Posted February 28, 2014 The existing 3200 seems to be auto clocking to 2100 speeds though (133mhz) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpikeSoprano Posted February 28, 2014 Posted February 28, 2014 Nice catch vdp, so the 2700 might run better if they stay at the rated speed . Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
VDPD2005 Posted February 28, 2014 Posted February 28, 2014 Great, just needed someone to agree with me to make sure I wasn't crazy. I'll go with 2700 Thanks guys Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpikeSoprano Posted February 28, 2014 Posted February 28, 2014 Your welcome, good luck with your upgrade . Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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