Hey Guys

My younger sister was given a Compaq computer that's in serious need for an upgrade. It has 256 MB of RAM and an intel celeron processor at 2.4 GHz.
Its running XP, and its for basic word processing, web surfing, email and some small games here and there.

The model of the computer is

S4010CL

My question is that should the memory be? (my thoughts are about 1GB)
Also, where do I get the memory and where do I find the memory that's compatible with this computer?
Is it worth it, or would I be better off buying some cheap desktop for 500-600 bucks?

Thanks a bunch

-Rob-

Crucial.com will sell you memory guaranteed to work with that computer or they'll give you your money back.

Hi there,

The Crucial Online Scanner will tell you exactly what you have and what upgrades are possible. You don't have to purchase from their website, but Crucial do make good quality RAM.

I would think that 512MB would be a good upgrade over 256MB, given the uses you have listed.

A quick search on the Crucial website shows that your system uses DDR PC-2700 RAM, and a 1x 256MB stick will cost you $US 16.99 to raise it to 512MB RAM. This should help you out a bit, but going much higher than this most probably won't change a lot, unless you use the computer for lots of multi-tasking and find yourself maxing out the RAM.

Note that generally upgrading the RAM doesn't make your computer faster, it just allows you to do more things at once. Under Windows XP, 256MB of RAM was a very basic amount, and upgrading this to 512MB allowed enough headroom for home and office uses. 1GB of RAM is recommended for 3D gaming, whilst 2GB would be for very serious gaming and/or multimedia editing purposes.

Cheers

Troy