I wanted to save money by buying ram from newegg or some other site...

And I was aiming for 3GB for my laptop. Any advice as to what to get? There are rather large price ranges as well as difficulty getting anything other than 2GB packs and 4GB packs.

 

First, whats your current specs?

 

Dont have it yet, but it would be

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7250 (2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB/2MB cache)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Basic Edition
Glossy, widescreen 15.4 inch display (1280x800)
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
1GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz
Speed: 160GB SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
CD / DVD writer (DVD+/-RW Drive)
Dell Wireless 1390 802.11g Mini-Card
Integrated 2.0M Pixel Webcam
85Whr Lithium Ion Battery (9 cell)
High Definition Audio 2.0

While I have this thread, can I ask what exactly an audio card will do for me? I was told by people who know a lot about audio editing (programs like protools, logic, and sonar) that a more expensive sound card isnt really going to do anything at all for me and it's really just for gaming. True?

Thanks

 

If you want 3gb then you're gonna have to buy a 2gb stick and a 1gb stick. You really can't go wrong with any brand, especially if you're buying from newegg. If you really care about brand names tho, then go for the likes of Corsair, OCZ or Kingston.

But like I said, you can save some money and get brands like geil, pny, patriot, adata etc. and they will be just fine.

Obviously if you don't do stuff like gaming, movies or listening to music (where a good quality card would be necessary) then you don't need anymore than the basic sound card.

 

Take a look at the RAM DEALS thread.

Which upgrade are you looking at? If you're looking at the integrated Creative crap then don't get it. It is a software package only and is more of a hassle than anything - it takes up a significant amount of resources and is known to cause problems.

I like your configuration but I'd change one thing - get Vista Premium instead of Vista Basic. Basic is stripped down . . . the small amount of extra money it takes to go to Premium is worth it.

 

Well while I wont be gaming (aside from possibly good old WC3 DOTA or something where I dont particularly care about graphics), I will be watching movies and I will definitely be listening to music. So I guess that's where I was wondering what kind of sound card I should be looking at.

Thanks for the help with the ram though, it does clear up my questions

 

Edit: I was wondering about that... what exactly does vista premium get me? I guess I'm asking if it's stuff I'll actually need, or just extra software that will slow the system down. I plan on getting my laptop cleaned up by someone after I get it to get rid of all the extra crap that laptops tend to come with.

Also the sound card I was looking at would be ExpressCard Sound Blaster X-Fi® Xtreme Audio Sound Card for 75$ extra

 

Here's a good article that explains the differences between Vista Basic and Premium:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2068722,00.asp

The integrated sound will be fine for your uses. Vista doesn't make use of a dedicated sound card anyway so spending money on sound is a waste. Microsoft did not put DirectSound support in Windows Vista so the CPU is going to do all of the sound processing anyway, thus defeating the purpose of a dedicated sound card.