Dell Optiplex 170L RAM Upgrade

[masif]

Dell Optiplex 170L RAM Upgrade

This is a friend's computer and I need to upgrade his RAM. Currently he has two sticks or DDR 128 each and he is trying to go 512 or more total.

- Can I simply buy him any DDR 512 from newegg.com or is this proprietary to dell. If it is proprietary then where do I buy it from?

- Can he combine a 128 MB stick with the new 512 and enjoy a total of 640 MB RAM?

Please advice.

[photolady]

Dell says up to 2gb are allow; crucial says same thing.

Acccording to Crucial, you can use this memory:

http://www.crucial.com/store/listpar...0170L%20Series

And yes, you can mix them. Though you should know that if the original memory is a slower speed like PC2100 and the new is PC2700, the memory will run at the slower speed ram.

[masif]

Dell says up to 2gb are allow; crucial says same thing.

Acccording to Crucial, you can use this memory:

http://www.crucial.com/store/listpar...0170L%20Series

And yes, you can mix them. Though you should know that if the original memory is a slower speed like PC2100 and the new is PC2700, the memory will run at the slower speed ram.

Ok, so are you saying that I can't just order a stick from newegg, say this one OR just get one from best buy for that matter and use in dell?

mixing the two sticks raises another question. If the 128 mb stick is slower (PC2100) and the new one is PC2700, is it better to just have one stick of PC2700 for 512 MB RAM or is it better to mix and have 640 MB RAM at PC2100?

[photolady]

No I didn't say that. I said Crucial states what can be used in that computer. You do not have to buy from them, you just buy where ever you want to as long as the memory meets the specs of what crucial says.

Actually, it's better to have the same speeds. So it would be better have two 512mb modules of PC2700. But, if the FSB on the computer is only 266Ghz then the PC2700 will still only run at PC2100 speeds.

[masif]

I will need to do some homework I guess

[Train]

If this it.
http://www.dell.com/content/products...=us&l=en&s=dfh

Then get 2 sticks. I GB each.

HUMM
Memory
Two DIMM slots support 128MB-2GB Non-ECC 400MHz1 or 333MHz1 DDR SDRAM Shared3 memory

Vista does best with 2 GB of ram.