RAM upgrade in XP

[Eaglefeather]

I was finally able to save enough to upgrade my RAM in Windows XP Home.

I purchased two sticks of 512 mb of PC 133 RAM, and installed it this afternoon. The RAM went in ok, but my US Robotics external modem quit working.

My system specs are as follows:

OS Name Micorsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
OS Munufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Manufacturer ECS
System Model K7S5A
System Type X86-based PC
Processor X86 Family 6 Model 7 Stepping 0 AuthenticAMB~996 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. 07.00T, 4/2/2001
SMBIOS Version 2.3
Windows Directory C:\Windows
System Directory C:\Windows\system32
Boot Device \Device=HarddiskVolume1
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version="5.1.2600.2180{xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158}"
Time Zone Eatern Daylight time
Total Physical Memory 768.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 508.36 MB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 MB
Page File Space 1.27 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys

The owners manual for the K7S5A mother board, states very clearly that the maximum RAM is 1GB, and two 512 mb RAM stick is a fraction more than 1 GB. Should this have caused the modem to stop working?

I removed one of the 512 mb sticks and reinstalled a 256 mb stick in it's place then used XPs System Restore, (went back to yesterday), to get the modem to work again. Sorry if this makes me sound like a complete ignoramus, but are those extra 24 mb of RAM enough to cause this to happen?

I have been contemplating putting the other 512 MB stick back in and trying system restore, is this a good idea, or should I just be happy with 768 MB of RAM and leave well enough alone?

(I only really needed to upgrade to the extra RAM because I use Paintshop Pro, and I have been experiencing lockups, (since installing XP), and figured it was because I only had 320 mb of RAM.) I am not into games or anything else that requires huge amounts of RAM.

Just another thing I noticed. They say that increasing RAM speeds up a PC. But even the increase to 768 mb, made no difference in loading speed of any of my programs. Since installing XP, everything is slow, slow, slow.

Any advice would be appreciated. (I know that this is an old machine and a newer model would solve my problems, however I am not in a position, financially, to be able to purchase a new PC. I must make do with this one.)

Thanks,
Rob

[Alaron]

1GB = 1024MB, so you are fine with the RAM amount. While the extra RAM should have made a difference, you are still working with just a 1Ghz CPU, and that is probably going to struggle a bit on heavy graphics editing.

I would try uninstalling the modem completely. Add the new RAM and reinstall the modem fresh. Let us know how it works for you.

[glc]

If you can return that PC133, try a couple DDR333 or DDR400 modules instead. It may wind up being cheaper and it's a bit faster. You can't mix types, it's either/or.

[Eaglefeather]

Thanks for the advice Alaron. I followed your advice and everything went smoothly.

In regards to speed, it is not within programs that I have a speed problem, it is in the loading of programs. Even very small programs, such as Passmark, where I keep my address book, can take as long as 30 seconds to load. Within programs, such as Paintshop Pro, everything is fast and smooth. The other place where it was very slow was the built in card games such as Spider and Free Cell. I haven't tried them yet to see if they have been speeded up with the new RAM, as I have just finished with the installation.

Again, my sincere thanks.

Thanks for your advice as well GLC. I got a very good deal from a small computer shop that was closing up and clearing all their inventory at drastically reduced prices. I cannot return the PC133, all sales were final. I had been saving to get DDR, but when I heard about this clearance I went over and really lucked in on the PC133.

[liambl]

To speed up program loading, try defragmenting your hard drive.