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    Memory upgrade for HP

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by William, Dec 11, 2005.

  1. William

    William Notebook Enthusiast

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    Hi. I have a HP Pavilion zd8000 notebook, with 512 MB RAM (2 x 256). I've been thinking about upgrading this, and I decided to just go all out and buy 2 1 GB sticks. Now I have several questions about this:
    1) Are there any disadvantages in getting this much RAM in terms of system performance (besides disadvantages to your wallet)?
    2) I think that my notebook can use DDR2 memory, at either 400 MHz or 533 MHz, so is the 533 MHz better as I expect? Does the zd8000 model take advantage of the faster memory?
    3) I remember reading somewhere a long time ago that if you pair 2 sticks of RAM with the same characterstics you can take advantage of some dual ram option, which increases the performance, or something like that. Do I need to do anything special to enable that, or is it enough to just buy 2 stick of the same model and put them in?
    4) What is that CAS latency thing, and are bigger or smaller numbers better?
    5) How can I find out which specific models of ram are actually compatible with my notebook?

    Thank you very much for any answer.

    Bill

    That's about all the questions I have for now.
     
    William, Dec 11, 2005
    #1
  2. miner

    miner Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    1. No

    2. Newer ZD8000's can use DDR2 memory, but if your came with DDR then you can only use DDR memory.

    3. Dual channel is not that big of an improvement, this again depends on whether the chipset used supports dual channel or not. I am not quite sure whether yours does. Check your chipset spec(you can find a tool to do this on Intel.com). This will help in figuring out whether the chipset supports dual channel and DDr2/DDR memory.

    4. CAS latency in lay mans term can be referred to as the time taken for the system to access the data on the RAM. So higher the number slower the memory. But does it make a difference if you buy a CAS2 or CAS3 memoy? Well, if you are the average user who uses the laptop for some basic uses, then it really does not matter but if you want cutting edge performance(however small it might be) then getting the best timings is important. If you want a more technical explanation. Then check this link...
    http://www.dewassoc.com/performance/memory/cas_latency.htm

    5. Major memory manufacturers have online memory configurators on their repective websites...
    Here are a few...
    Crucial(Micron)
    Kingston
    Corsair
    OCZ Technology
     
    miner, Dec 11, 2005
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