My GF has a dell...

[cloud]

ok my gf has a dell pc, and it wont even run sims 2, and she wants to play it so bad on her pc, so i thought about getting her another system, but then i started looking at the specs, and i may be able to upgrade for cheaper.


she has a 2.8ghz p4 with 1mb L2 cache
which aint too bad,
but whats hurtin her is the 256mb of ram and integrated graphics, though her mobo has no pci-e slot or anything.

think i could just get her a gig of ram and a pci video card and she'd be ok? i dont have much experience with pci cards, but she just wants to play sims 2. or should i just go ahead and fork out the extra $$ and get her a new system?

 

[talldude123]

AGP would be much better for a video card.

just get a 512MB chip, which will add up to 768MB RAM.

Also, i think you have to buy RAM from Dell

 

[cloud]

i have to buy it from dell? wtf? they want like $90 for a stick of 512

 

[Trotter]

As long as her PC uses standard RAM (DDR400, or DDR2), you can buy it anywhere.

 

[Apokalipse]

i have to buy it from dell? wtf? they want like $90 for a stick of 512

that's Dell for you. make it look like a good deal, and basically shaft you... especially with the extras....

some people say that Dell uses slightly altered RAM (like, the dint is slightly offset so normal RAM won't fit)
I'm not sure if this is true or not.

 

[chris32680]

not true at all. i have a POS dell, and i put a 512 rosewill and a 512 kingston in it i bought from newegg. dell does have some very nazi-ish methods, but this is not one of them. and buy her a cheapo agp card, from what i understand pretty much all of the dells made before this year or so (or maybe still) all had agp mobos.

 

[Chazzer3]

you can also go to crucial.com and they do RAM for everything...!

 

[Capricorn]

What's the Dell model number of this beast?

Are you sure her computer doesn't have either an AGP or PCI-e slot? Given the CPU & amount of RAM, which let's me have a good guess at it's age, I'm not surprized it doesn't have PCI-e, but it should have at least AGP. PCI graphics cards can be hard to find nowadays. If it does have an AGP slot, and nvidia 6600 GT AGP card would likely do the trick (in addition to the RAM).

You should be able to get RAM from many sources so long as it has the same specs as the RAM this in there (DDR vs. DDR2; PC2700 vs PC3200, similar clock timings (CL2 vs. CL3, etc). The RAM finding tool at crucial can help nail that down (even if you don't buy it from them).

 

[Trotter]

Are you sure her computer doesn't have either an AGP or PCI-e slot? Given the CPU & amount of RAM, which let's me have a good guess at it's age, I'm not surprized it doesn't have PCI-e, but it should have at least AGP.

This IS a Dell we're talking about.

If her comp is a low end version, it won't have a graphics slot... instead it will have a slot shaped area with lots of solder where the card should go.

 

[hmammen]

This IS a Dell we're talking about.

If her comp is a low end version, it won't have a graphics slot... instead it will have a slot shaped area with lots of solder where the card should go.

LOL

trust me this dell has a pci-e slot...you just got to find it in all those wires.