I need to upgrade my PC. How do I know what's compatible?

Question

I have a Gateway 700SE. It currently has 256mb pc800 rdram. I'd like to add more, but I remember the tech guy saying it has to be installed in pairs. I'm thinking there's like four 64mb cards in there right now, so I'd have to pull out 128mb to add any more.

How do I know what memory to buy? Will anything with pc800 rdram work? Can I just get two 256mb cards, and add to two of the 64mb cards that will be remaining?

Also, I need to replace my hard drive. It's currently an 80gb 7M Ultra ATA hard drive. How do I know what will work as a replacement? I'd like to go with larger than an 80gb if possible.

Thanks for all your help! I hate feeling ignorant! :)

Answer 1

geek546 is correct concerning the ram but he is wrong concerning the disk.

first of all you have bad luck because RDRAM is discontinued and therefore still extremely expensive. you can get 2 x 256MB from newegg (cheapest i've found).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820151102

i wouldn't replace the hard drive, because i suppose there is an empty bay for a second internal hard drive. just hook it up to the same ribbon cable and set it to slave. then move all the big private files like music and videos to the new one. this will free up enough space on the old one to run properly again.
it has furthermore the advantage that you don't have to setup the OS and all applications on the new HD.

a suggestion for a new hard disk (it's 90Gb larger at the same price as geek's suggestion).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822145090
an additional advantage is, you can order all parts from the same retailer and btw, newegg is reliable.

Answer 2

compatability just depends what your motherboard can support.

for the harddrive, any other ATA hard drive will be compatible, no matter how large the capacity is.
for the memory, you will need to buy pc800 again but also take note of the pin count.
People recommend getting it in pairs, only for compatability (most times it is not required). For example, i had some generic memory that came with my dell laptop, and when i tried to put some corsair in it it would not work with the generic dell memory. however when i switched out both pieces of dell memory for corsair it worked fine. But usually for desktops you can mix and match all you want. I think i have 3 different brand sticks of memory in my desktop, (128, 512MB, 512 MB).
Good luck.

Answer 3

Get two 256MB and leave two 64MB in place, so you'll have 640MB that is enough for XP. About the disk, I suggest a Western Digital Caviar SE that is fast and silent and has a 8MB buffer:
http://www.softwareforless.com/findspecs.asp?partid=067831
You can set your old drive as slave (you'll need to move the tiny plastic bit on the rear) and use it for backup.

Good luck :)

Answer 4

Just visit your computer shop where you bought your computer, im sure they know whats best.