Buying RAM...

[RS14]

I'm upgrading an old laptop, and I note that the (obsolete?) PC133 144 pin SODIMM sticks it uses are more expensive than modern sticks by a significant bit. A single 512MB stick is over $70 on crucial, and $140 from Kingston. Or I could by generic RAM off ebay for about $20 a stick.

Does anyone have any experience with this? How important is it to buy RAM from a reputable source? Will ebay RAM be likely to perform below spec?

[Flickerdart]

Yes, DDR RAM is expensive. I'm not sure if off-brand sticks will perform that much more poorly, since it's going to suck either way.

[Silly Wizard]

IMO, you might as well get a new computer. Buying good DDR RAM would cost like half a new laptop.

You should just go with the generic $20 sticks, and save up for something that doesn't suck. I dunno how good it'll run; I bought some pretty good DDR RAM sticks about a year ago for $70ish, but that was for a desktop computer

[RS14]

Yes, DDR RAM is expensive. I'm not sure if off-brand sticks will perform that much more poorly, since it's going to suck either way.

Not DDR SDRAM; just SDRAM.

Yeah.


IMO, you might as well get a new computer. Buying good DDR RAM would cost like half a new laptop.

You should just go with the generic $20 sticks, and save up for something that doesn't suck. I dunno how good it'll run; I bought some pretty good DDR RAM sticks about a year ago for $70ish, but that was for a desktop computer

Hm, in a few years. I've got a faster computer with a dead GPU that I use as a server (for Mathematica/Matlab), so the old one just needs to run X11, SSH, and some basic stuff like emacs and Firefox.

[Erloas]

Back in my early days of building my own computers I used some budget ram a few times and there were usually problems. You are a lot more likely to get RAM that is "good" so you can't return it but won't work with whatever system you want to use it in.

RAM is cheap because of high production numbers, once you to the stuff that is no longer in high production then the prices jump a lot.

Usually at this point it is almost not worth upgrading anything that still uses DDR RAM. As you have seen, the price is high, and by the time you take $70 for a mediocre upgrade on an old system you are at about 1/5 of the price of a new budget laptop that will be better in every single way. Even a netbook would be more powerful, though smaller.

Alternatively, you might find some used stuff on Ebay, or you could very well find an old laptop for less then the cost of the RAM by itself and just take the RAM out of it and have the rest for spare parts. If you have any friends that do a lot of computer stuff they could very well have some left over, or if not friends, then the local computer repair shop. I know by the time I switched to a system that used DDR2 I had half a dozen extra sticks of RAM that I no longer had any use for. You might even ask your helpdesk department at school or work if they have any extra, they've probably had a lot of laptops die and they stripped parts from and have since upgraded to the point where those old parts are no longer of any use but they still haven't got rid of them "just in case."

[Krade]

My understanding of laptops (or most computers entirely, for that matter) has always been that it's a bad idea to bother upgrading it. Any money that you might spend on upgrades would be put to far better use just going towards an entirely new computer altogether.

[Flickerdart]

Not DDR SDRAM; just SDRAM.

Still expensive, still sucky.