RAM Swapping

[Dallidas]

ok, so i have 2 old towers laying around and my current Pc could use some more RAM. So can I take my RAM from my old pc(s) and put it in my new one?If so is it just plug it in and it works?
all 3 PCs are dells im currently running XP and I have 2 empty slots with 2 full in my current pc if that helps
thanks

[Unimatrix01]

Its not as easy as that. You need to make sure that the older RAM is compatible (same slot size, # of pins, etc). Also you should try to use two sticks of equal speed and size (assuming you want Dual-Channel).

[IRML]

^yup he's right, but actually you really should make sure it's the same manufacturer too, because if it isn't you can get issues

[Andrew March]

Dell used to use a propriertery form of ram called RDRAM, which no one else to my knowledge ever used, so I would check to see how old your machines are as well.

[HawkMan]

Originally Posted by Andrew March

Dell used to use a propriertery form of ram called RDRAM, which no one else to my knowledge ever used, so I would check to see how old your machines are as well.

I'll fix that for you.

Intel made a deal with the company makign RDRam wich was supposed to be better than SDRam, deal that said all intel motherboards coudl only support RDRam and they had to use RDRam exclusively for a certain amount of years.


With RDRam being ridiculously expensive and no usable 3rd party Intel mobo's at the time This hurt Intel more than AMD's better and cheaper performance at the time. Dell got suckered because they only used Intel at the time. because of similar deals with intel.

[Nadesico]

I remember RDRam, underperforming overpriced rubbish. I only ever bought 1 P4 motherboard with RDRam and it was so much of a bitch to get running. For every empty slot, you HAD to have a spacer or the system wouldnt boot, unlike a properly built motherboard.

I was so glad when ASUS came out with their DDRRam/SDRam friendly P4 boards.

[Forcemaster2000]

Another thing to keep in mind is that your RAM will run at the slowest speed of RAM you have installed...

i.e. If you've got 333Mhz ram and you install a stick of RAM running at 100Mhz, all your RAM will now run at 100Mhz.

[meaty-btz]

actually Rambus RAM was not trash. Expensive,yes, but fast. It took several YEARS for DDR to catch up to the high end RAMBUS ram speeds (the low end cheaper rambus not withstanding). However rambus was an energy hog and ran very very hot. My old rambus p4 had idle ram temps of 120F and 131F+ for heavy use (with heat sinks!) However my Rambus P4 could outperform any DDR platform from its era. Course the ram was a buttload and a half.

[HawkMan]

in most situations RDRAM was fatsre yes, but certain key places DDR was faster. DDR/DDR2 also scaled much better with oprocessors speed.

In Hindsight even Intel admitted the deal they made with Rambus was the worst thign they ever did and they broke out of it early. They where simply losing customer because of it, and it was holdign them back in performance due to the lack of scalability, and Rambus was slow with developement because they had such a comfy arrangement. and there was the whole paired ram chip issues and stuff

Since their exclusive licensing didn't work out(mostly their own fault) and their competionless market didn't keep them alive, Rambus is no left to simply sue all the other DDR ram makers claiming every ram patent they can.

Rambus was for a short period "slightly" better than the competition, but the inability to properly scale witht he architecture and the exhorbitant prices killed them, and it's all their own fault.

if they hadn't priced so high above DDR ram and had kept their developement pace up with what it was before the intel deal they would probably still be in bed with Intel.

only after Intel broke off the deal did they get back to devloping RDRam and release a new spec that would in fact have been a storng contender to DDR2 and DDR3 and I think it scaled pretty well too... but by then noone trusted them and their technology rests unused. Well except they sue the DDR/SDRam peopel for having stolen their technology

[Eoraptor]

I think we're getting off this poor fellow's question here a bit.

If your machine has a Pentium 3 or four, or an AMD Athlon or Athlon XP, you can reasonably expect to be able to use the same memory chips (though yes if they are different sizes or different speeds you won't get peak performance) DDR Ram has a single slot in the center of the connectors, (DDR2 memory c slot is slightly offset to one side) older SDRAM ( aside from having physically larger chips) has two slots, etc. you might occasionally run across REALLY old DIMM, but these are typically only found on Pentium 1 and early pentium 2 machines. The RD ram these guys are talking about usually has a gold or silver heatsink (plate) covering the memory chips and is shorter lengthwise.

Its very rare to see compatibility problems across different DDR chips these days, or across SD ram chips also.