'Crucial' memory...

[SimonCC]

Im thinking of buying 512 mb ram memory upgrade for my t42 from crucial to make its 1.2 gb ram in total. Has anyone purchased from crucial? Are the cards reliable? Also, is there anything i should know when installing the card to my system (already checked out the instructions on access ibm, but just in case)? Will this upgrade really improve my performance in a real way - in other words will i be able to feel the differance.

system: M725 1.6GHZ T42 40GB HDD 512MB RAM.

Cheers!!

[none]

Crucial is the favorite brand around these acres... In other words, it's actually the best memory you can buy, most people here even prefer it over buying from IBM.

I assume the 1.2GB RAM is a typo, you're gonna have 1024MB which is 1GB when you put it in

And there isnt anything special you need to do when you instlal it, just do it with gently. You may want to ground yourself if you're worried about static electricity.

Once you install it, you should either disable your Windows paging file, or optimize it. For real detailed instructions just search Google for "optimize page file xp" and you'll get plenty of tutorials.

What you set it to usually depands on your needs, typically the virtual memory is 1.5GB min to 2.5GB max if you have 1GB of physical memory.

[none]

Oh yea... Whether it will improve performence vastly, again depands on what you use the computer for. If you tend to run lots of big programs at once (for example, I am a designer, I run Dreamweaver, photoshop, and 10 Firefox windows) then you'll see a difference. But if you just type Word documents or surf, which doesn't even require the 512MB you have right now, you may not see a difference.

[SimonCC]

thanks none, ok, about the pagefile, is it wise to disable it?? Also, i have looked at black vipers page and he recommends a seperate partition for the swap files, i dont think i wanna go into this territory, it may sound silly but if i leave the swapfile setting to default (using my hd for swap files) will this drastically decrease performance? Id appreciate some info from people who have dealt with this as im a newbie on the subject!

[atlacatl]

I second Crucial...

I never had a problem with their memory - And if I do, they have a lifetime warranty...

Also, great service...

[SimonCC]

can ayone provide me with more info on setting the right page file size, i read on xp tweaks.com that 256mb was sufficient static memory space needed, any views??

[ZPrime]

NEVER use no pagefile. Very bad idea.

Optimum pagefile location is on your least active drive (if you've only got one then you have no choice though). Size should be at minimum the amount of RAM you have, although I'd suggest 1.5x ram as a minimum, and then 2x or 3x your ram for the maximum.

setting the maximum high will NOT hurt performance, and the file will NOT grow that large unless the system actually needs it. all that setting the max high does is keep you from ever seeing the annoying "system is low on virtual memory" error and having to change the value and reboot.

contrary to popular belief, setting the MINIMUM high does *not* hurt anything either. having a high minimum doesn't mean the system will use the pagefile more.

Anything on ArsTechnica posted by DriverGuru about pagefiles is incredibly helpful and knowledgeable. Here's a sample, and another from the same thread. Also, read this entire thread and pay attention to DriverGuru.

there are MANY misconceptions about how the swapfile and windows memory systems work, DG tries his best to help clear them up.

[SimonCC]

thanks you zprime, i appreciate your help, im gonna read it now!

[SimonCC]

ok, think im gonna just get my memory from crucial and use '1.5 times' as a rule of thumb. seems to be the most logical thing to do.

[daeojkim]

Bought 512 Crucial RAMs. It has been running without problem so far. Also did memory test and did not find any problems.. Verdict: I like it!!