ANCIENT

[xwrench3]

SO, i have a bunch of OLD memory sitting around, and my daughter has a just as old hand me down computer. it is as slow as molasis in January in the Arctic circle, runnng UPHILL!  so since i have been messing with computers, i figured i would look at it. its easy to see at least part of the problem. 2) 512mb sticks of DDR2 memory. which just happens to have a speed of 533mhx. i have 2 more sticks (that at least match each other) that are 1GB each, but have a speed of 667mhz. i know that memory is supposed to match if at all possible. will all 4 work together?or make matters worse because of the speed difference? its an old HP with a core 2 duo processor. but i dont know which processor.

[HPWebcamAble]

It's ok to put the additional RAM in to test it.

Worst case scenario: it doesn't boot, and you won't be able to use that memory.

 

It'll run at the speed of the slowest RAM.

 

 

[dalekphalm]

5 minutes ago, xwrench3 said:

SO, i have a bunch of OLD memory sitting around, and my daughter has a just as old hand me down computer. it is as slow as molasis in January in the Arctic circle, runnng UPHILL!  so since i have been messing with computers, i figured i would look at it. its easy to see at least part of the problem. 2) 512mb sticks of DDR2 memory. which just happens to have a speed of 533mhx. i have 2 more sticks (that at least match each other) that are 1GB each, but have a speed of 667mhz. i know that memory is supposed to match if at all possible. will all 4 work together?or make matters worse because of the speed difference? its an old HP with a core 2 duo processor. but i dont know which processor.

lmfao... that's "ancient" to you, eh? Certainly is old, but I wouldn't call anything newer than DDR1 ancient. But I suppose the term is relative.

 

Anyway, yes, all 4 sticks should work. They should simply downclock themselves to match the slowest stick, but you might have to manually set the memory timings to match the 533 MHz speed settings.

[xwrench3]

5 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

They should simply downclock themselves to match the slowest stick, but you might have to manually set the memory timings to match the 533 MHz speed settings.

i am assuming your talking about changing the settings in the BIOS?

[GreezyJeezy]

11 minutes ago, xwrench3 said:

i am assuming your talking about changing the settings in the BIOS?

yes

[iHardware Shelden]

They should all work but like others said it will clock down to the slowest speed ram, in terms of ancient you would be surprised how well that system can still stand up I most modern day tasks :)

 

[dalekphalm]

14 hours ago, xwrench3 said:

i am assuming your talking about changing the settings in the BIOS?

Yes, all the Memory settings are configured in the BIOS. If your BIOS has "auto" settings for the RAM, try those first. Best not to go messing around with RAM speeds and timings unless you have to.

[xwrench3]

the first time i even looked at a bois was yesterday. its quite intimidating. because i do not know what i am doing.  i knew that some systems would as i call it "self adjust" the the lower speed. i hope this one does.  if not, i will get the help of #1 son.  not that he is a computer guru. but he has been into his bios several times. at least this adds 2gb of ram to her system.

[LynxThe1st]

core 2 duo is fine

my school has about 300 of them

[xwrench3]

my original core 2 duo worked great for a lot of years. but even though it still worked, it was never really "right" after being hit by lightning. my daughters was a refurbished computer bought as my sons first computer. he learned on it, and screwed it up countless times over the 3 years he used it. at the end, it crashed almost as much as it ran. when we gave it to my daughter. i decided the best thing to do was just put a fresh copy of windows on the hard drive. then go thru all the updates. its a lot of messing around, but it was the only way i could "fix" what he did.  that, didn't go as planned. it took me more than two weeks, and multiple tries at purposely crashing the machine during what should have been overwriting the disc. the first week and a half i just kept trying different things, but all it would do is "repair" his files. even though it would not really repair them. anyway, somehow i finally got the disc to do a complete overwrite. it works better than it did, but it is still not right either. if it was within our financial means, i would just do to hers what i just did to mine. replace all the core components with new, and have a good, proper functioning computer.