i have 98se, i want to get more ram but not sure what sort i need, i currently only have 56 mb of ram, how do i get more and what sort do i need? sorry im hopeless with puters

The thing we really need to know is what motherboard you have in your computer

You may know what motherboard is in, but if you don't you can download a small program called Belarc

Once you have downloaded it, install it, and run it

Copy the details of the Main circuitboard section to the forum

thanks again putasolutions, here is the details for main circuit board
Board: SiS-730
Bus Clock: 100 megahertz
BIOS: Award Software International, Inc. 6.00 PG 03/09/2001
i have learnt (after purchasing wrong memory/ram, lol) that i need pc133, i have 9.50gb (with 4.93 free) on my hard drive, is this enough to get 256mb of ram and have xp as my os? once again thankyou for helping out, i wouldnt have a puter workin if it wasnt for you blokes

256Mb is adequate for running XP, obviously the more you can get the better and £($) per Mb, 512 would be advisable. You're looking at a 256 (or higher) 133Mhz SD RAM,

You said that you had 56Mb RAM which suggests that you probably have 64Mb with 8Mb used for an onboard Graphics card

thanks again putasolutions but will my motherboard be able to cope with 512mb and will this effect how many gb i need on my hard drive

Timbo,

If your motherboard has an SiS-730 chipset, then I'm deducing that it's pretty modern, i.e. no more than 2 or 3 years old. It will have no problem accessing 512Mb RAM.

The fact that your motherboard has a 100MHz bus clock would normally mean that it only needs PC100 memory so I'm curious as to why you think you need PC133. In any case, though, PC133 memory is better and cheaper than PC100 memory now anyway.

To be honest, I would imagine that the bus speed hasn't been altered in the BIOS, but as 133Mhz ram sticks are backward compatible in 99 % of cases, it's immaterial

thanks heaps peeps, i have the new RAM installed now, the speed and smoothness of pages loading is quite scary, lol, just one more thing, when i get xp put on do i want to fully install it or upgrade and will i need to save my broadband/server details or will it automatically be remembered? i apologise for wasting time on such simple q's but 98se is built in to puter, no disc and i really dont want to stuff anything up, thanks again for ur help and advice

Originally Posted by timbo

when i get xp put on do i want to fully install it or upgrade

Hmmm, one of those questions like "what's better - white bread or brown bread?" - everybody has their own opinion and preference but both answers are probably just as valid.

Personally, I would never do an upgrade of a Windows operating system. There's the high chance that you'll have to re-install some of your programs again, as well as settings like your broadband connection details. For the bit of extra effort that's involved, I would always prefer to format the hard disk and start from scratch - you should end up with a "cleaner", better-performing system because there'll be no legacy Windows 98 stuff accidentally left over to complicate things.

Having said that, I've been doing this stuff for years and I find it easy. Most people don't. The option to upgrade an existing Windows version without having to format and start again was put in so that less experienced users can do it an easier way and, in theory at least, it should more straightforward. I've heard that it can take a long time though - a colleague from work said his reasonable spec PC took 6 hours just to do the Windows upgrade I wouldn't be surprised if there's someone on here that can tell us that they've always done upgrade installs and not had any problems - if so, please reply to this thread and voice your opinion

I can make my recommendation, which is wipe everything off and do it the "proper" way (!) .... but the decision has to be yours!

Hope that helps - let us know

Originally Posted by putasolutions

... I would imagine that the bus speed hasn't been altered in the BIOS ...

Cheers putasolutions - hadn't thought of that