Hey there today I have finally decided that it is time to upgrade my ram from 512 to 1gb and I really cant wait.. accept I need a couple questions answered. I ran the program CPU-Z to find out all the information on my computer and this is what I got in the txt file

http://mrcracker.com/cpuz.txt

and from there i got my motherboard model and looked it up to find this:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/g...c00100539#N254

Now as my cpuz test shows that my current ram stick is a pc2100 (133mhz) now from the motherboard link i got .. which im pretty sure is the right model it shows that my max speed is a pc2700. Should I be getting that or should I stick with a 2100. Someone told me that its not good to mix different speeds so I'm asking you! Also as i went to newegg.com to look for a 512 stick i could buy i found many but im confused. what pin count should i be looking for if anyone could just point me to the right direction.


also my video card. this is a pretty old computer but it will be perfect for me once i get a video card upgrade. now by looking at the motherboard information it shows me that i have a Intel Extreme Graphics with Direct AGP which can have up to 64mb onboard memory if i upped it from BIOS. now on startup i pressed F11 to get to bios and for the video memory option it was set to 8mb. I pressed it to see what options there were and it was either 8mb or down to 1mb?? I dont understand that. Dont see no 64mb. Maybe im mistaking that for the cache or something. I would be happy if you can fill me out.

But I would also like to start looking for a new graphics card .. especially for gaming. If there is any pro here that would like to please fill me in what I should be looking for and what my motherboard can handle so I could start searching up on neweg It would be great! Or if anyone has any they recommend on newegg that my motherboard would support it would be great!

You can mix the speed on older motherboards with no problems. In fact, since faster RAM is probably not as old, it may be more readily available and therefore cheaper. The main thing is to get the right memory type for your motherboard. And note that the RAM will operate at the speed of the slowest RAM installed.

On newer motherboards, matching speed matters because most new boards support dual-channel architecture and that requires RAM in pairs.

These sites have RAM wizards that scan your system and determine compatible RAM (or you can manually plug in the PC make and model, or motherboard make and model, and the wizard will list compatible RAM):

Crucial
Corsair (manual data entry only - no system scanner)
Kingston (manual data entry only - no system scanner)
MemoryStock
18004Memory - comes recommended, but I have not purchased from there.

As for your 8Mb limit, perhaps when you add more RAM, you will be given more options. Of course, any RAM that is dedicated to graphics is taken away from the CPU and the OS so getting an add-in card is the way to go. Your PC will take an AGP card so set a budget and look for a card.