TravelMate 3212NWXMi - Urgent RAM Upgradation...!!!

[sunandoghosh]

TravelMate 3212NWXMi - Urgent RAM Upgradation...!!!

Respected nerds, techs, geeks and dear fellow members,

After months and years of waiting and speculation; I (poor soul who managed to purchase laptop first time in life) purchased one laptop few months back - TravelMate 3212NWXMi -

Presently by default the laptop came with -

1. 60 GB Hard Disk
2. 256 MB DDR II

Now I am finding that both of the above is posing as a terrible constraint in my use of laptop.

The laptop is terribly slowly and I find it very diffcult to use in reading word documents; PDFs etc...

I want to upgrade RAM as Maximum as possible...

From my preliminary analysis; what appears to me is that there may be two slots and maximum each slot can take 1 GB each...(I may be wrong)...

Few Questions in context of RAM Upgradation:

1. Is it wise to go for 1 GB each slot so that laptop is having 2 GB RAM...????

2. Does RAM of 2 GB will really boost speed of laptop like desktop...????

3. Which company (like transcend; hynix; zion etc etc; I am not sure) should i purchase these two RAM 1 GB each chip...????

4. Is there any compatibility issue of RAM with acer laptop model 3212NWXMi - I mean does it have to be of any particular specification....??? OR any RAM from any company would do...??? (This is MOST MOST IMPORTANT query...plz answer in detail).???

5. Does DDR (DDR 1) and DDR 11 really vary significantly in speed...???

Any help / advice / suggestion is more than welcome....Plz reply to my above questions...!!!!!

Best regards

Sunando Ghosh
Kolkata India

sunandoghosh at gmail dot com

Most Most IMP Question:

Is there any compatibility issue of RAM with acer laptop model 3212NWXMi - I mean does it have to be of any particular specification....??? OR any RAM from any company would do...??? (This is MOST MOST IMPORTANT query...plz answer in detail).???

I know certainly that I have asked too too many questions but then I most humbly rqeuest to plz plz come forward and give ur valuable / advice / opinion as I WILL BE BASING MY ENTIRE DECISION BASED ON REPLIED HERE....

Thanks for taking time to read this long post and possibly taking time to reply and sharing ur valuable wisdom...its truly appreciated....

 

[dcc]

No one answering at daniweb?

 

[sunandoghosh]

I really dont know how fast is 533MHz but was just wondering whether Laptop Acer 3212 (3210 series) is also capable of having higher speed RAM (more than 533 MHZ) and are DDR 2 RAM with speeds more than 533 MHz available in market....

I am attaching two screenshots.....

1. The RAM Test shown by website http://www.crucial.com/systemscanner/



2. User Manual of Acer laptop 3210 extract for RAM...



Plz be kind to clarify once again my queries....

Thanks always

 

[junglemike]

The laptop is terribly slowly and I find it very diffcult to use in reading word documents; PDFs etc...

Computer speed doesn't only depent on hardware specs, but on operating system, and your skills and installed software.
For example, I'm currenly writing from my tiny (1kg) laptop which is Pentium 2 (300mhz) w/ 128mb ram. And it's working really fast. But that's because i don' use windows XP (ughhh), as i don't use it on any of my other computers.

1. Is it wise to go for 1 GB each slot so that laptop is having 2 GB RAM...????

It only depends on your needs. If you really gonna need to use 2gb - than yes. But do you? For example 100 opnened internet sites (in firefox), 20 opened word documents, 10 opened pdf's - all this simultaneously will probably take as much as whole 1gb of ram.What about second gb of ram? - I don't know, you probably need some serious video editing or tremendous database to occupy it.

2. Does RAM of 2 GB will really boost speed of laptop like desktop...????

It depends on frame of reference. You see, If your frame of reference is 1gb of ram, than answer is probably NO. But from the fact that you use Win XP (my guess only) and 256mb ram - definitely YES.
4. I don't know anything about your model in particular, but if your lap uses standardized memory (99% it is) than any ram of this standard and will do, just like in desktop area.

Now, did you even consider a software-related part of your problem solution?
Reguarding operating system - I'm guessing its XP - soooooo. Not too much can be done here. but what about other software?
You said you open pdf documents a lot.
I'll just guess (maybe wrong) that you use acrobat reader for that.
Now if you tried this free pdf reader:
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/download.htm
you would discover that it requires 10-20 times!!!! less memory to open same document as adobe reader.
for example opening of 1500-page documet on my pentium 2 300mhz/128mb ram took around 2 secounds.

Same thing might apply to other software that you might be using.