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I have had my computer for around 5-6 years. It's a Dell Vostro 200 Slim model. My OS is Vista Home Basic 32-bit. It has 1.00 GB RAM and my processor is an Intel(R) Core Duo @ 2.00 GHz.

  1. Can I replace my two 512 RAM sticks with two 4GB RAM sticks without damaging the computer? I don't know a lot about computers, but is there a proportion as to what RAM you have with processor or system type or anything else?

  2. Is it okay to go with extremely large RAM? Or am I putting too much weight on buying more RAM, and should I just opt for a new computer or operating system?

slhck
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Yusaf
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5 Answers5

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Since your computer is 32bit based, without enabling PAE (Physical Address Extension), you would not see more than 4GB in use. As far as the computer, your CPU and Hard Drive will also likely be the bottleneck along with the RAM. A lot of computers from that generation would only support 2GB - 4GB of DDR2 memory.

  • 1,270 - Intel Core2 Duo E4500 @ 2.20GHz
  • 2,722 - Intel Pentium G850 @ 2.90GHz (Newest Intel "Celeron" Entry Level)
  • 4,196 - Intel Core i3-2120 @ 3.30GHz (Cheap Processor, Better than Entry Intel)
  • 6,746 - Intel Core i5-2500K @ 3.30GHz (Decent Processor)

The above information is taken from http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

You're better off buying a new computer. NewEgg will have shell shocker deals that would go for $250 and be more than 2x faster than what you currently have (G850 CPU) $400 would land you a Core i3, and 650-800 Core i5

kobaltz
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Different computers have different limits on how much RAM they can take. There's a nice tool at http://www.crucial.com for finding info on your specific model (for example, here's the Vostro 200). Crucial is a commercial site, but as far as I know their system specs are unbiased and you can use the information to order RAM From anyplace you want.

In your case, you can have up to 4 GB of RAM. Getting two 4 GB modules would be a waste, but you could get four 1GB modules very cheaply, and you'd still have vastly more than you do now. You could also keep your two 512k modules and get 2 1GBs for a total of 3 GB.

On the subject of how much it would improve your performance, I'll have to defer to others with more experience.

octern
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As you have already been told, different computers have different capabilities. I remember when my 1GB RAM HP laptop was acting slow and was always hanging when working, i decided to upgrade the RAM. In a quest to doing that, i upgrade the RAM to 2GB but couldn't go past that. So yes, you can upgrade your 1GB PC to 2GB but anything more, you may need to consult your engineer.

Certified
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If you aren't having a problem or limitation with the old computer, other than the suspicious that its old and the fun of playing under the hood - you are probably fine keeping that pc as-is. Sure, you can add 2 sticks of 2gb memory, but if you are just using it for email/web browsing, you won't see much of a difference.

Another suggestion, instead of getting a faster desktop, consider getting a new, small laptop or netbook. Then you would have the existing desktop - which may work fine, and the new laptop for portability, new and fun factors.

jdh
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5-6 years is way old. You'd be better off junking it. If you do want more memory on a newer machine and are not sure what to get, a great app is provided by crucial.com - go to their site, download their app, and run it - it will tell you exactly what to get.

Scott C Wilson
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