Help in selecting Ram upgrade

[The Howling Wolves]

Just installed Win 7 Home Premium 32 bit. Wanting to upgrade ram to use 64 bit.
Currently have 3Gb dual channel DDR2@333MHz, PC2 5300.
Can I or should I buy 4Gb DDR2, 800MHz,2x2Gb, PC26400 at Fry's and will my system accept it?
This is all new to me so walk me thru upgrading ram. Can and will provide more info if needed.

Max is 4096 MBytes with 4 slots on a ASUSTEk Motherboard

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I'd just buy another stick identical to what you have now. I'm guessing you have 3 separate 1 gig sticks, with 1 free slot.

No reason to throw out the RAM you now have, which seems to be what you are thinking about with the Fry's purchase.


You don't mention overclocking, so I guess that is not an issue.

I'd go to Crucial.com and enter your HP model number into the configurator. It will kick out the various modules that are guaranteed to work with your PC. Pick the 5300 speed 1 gig DDR 2 choice.

Looks like that would be the 1024 MB choice here, for $31.99:

http://www.crucial.com/search/searchresults.aspx?keywords=M9077c

There are very minor differences when using only 2 sticks rather than 4, but I don't think they are significant enough to cause you to throw out 3 gigs of good RAM.

 

[dbtmellis]

try www.crucial.com they have a memory scanner. This is where i buy my RAM when i want to upgrade my systems.

 

[The Howling Wolves]

I'd just buy another stick identical to what you have now. I'm guessing you have 3 separate 1 gig sticks, with 1 free slot.

No reason to throw out the RAM you now have, which seems to be what you are thinking about with the Fry's purchase.


You don't mention overclocking, so I guess that is not an issue.

I'd go to Crucial.com and enter your HP model number into the configurator. It will kick out the various modules that are guaranteed to work with your PC. Pick the 5300 speed 1 gig DDR 2 choice.

Looks like that would be the 1024 MB choice here, for $31.99:

Memory upgrades from Crucial.com - Search Categories

There are very minor differences when using only 2 sticks rather than 4, but I don't think they are significant enough to cause you to throw out 3 gigs of good RAM.

Had 2 sticks at 512 so I ended up getting 2x1GB DDR2 sticks at Staples.
Thanks for getting back and the info you provided.
I will close this thread out and have a great day.