ddr

[hungrylilboy]

..

[clocker]

what to look for? graphics, games, movies and speed obviously is what i am looking for
Then you shouldn't be looking at CAS 2.5 RAM.
You fail to mention any of the hardware you have so I can't say what kind of memory might be suitable, but CAS 2.5 is pretty loose timing to begin with.

[hungrylilboy]

..

[clocker]

Erm, your current RAM is PC 2700 and you should match it's speed.
A faster second stick would only default to match the one you already have.

Run the Everest 'latentcy" memory benchmark and see what your current RAM timings are.

[hungrylilboy]

..

[lynx]

it says

P4 2800 MHz MSI Gamila/Giovani/Neon Series PC2100 DDR SDRAM 2-3-3-6 128.4 nsI'm not really up on P4 motherboards, but that doesn't sound right to me. It suggests that your memory is running slower than it is capable of.

Everest tells you that you have PC2700 memory (clock speed 167MHz, effective speed 333MHz) but it is only running as PC2100 (clock speed 133MHz, effective speed 267MHz).

[hungrylilboy]

..

[Voetsek]

http://www.crucial.com/uk/

[lynx]

I'm quite sure that Everest is reporting correctly. When I said it doesn't sound right what I meant was that I would have expected it to be faster.

But then again, I did say I'm not too well up on current Intel boards so maybe they all run as slow as that, the one I encountered recently certainly did.

Here are links for the specs of the possible mobo's with 845GE chipset.
Neon (http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument?lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&docname=c00100539)
Neon2 (http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument?dlc=en&lc=en&cc=uk&docname=c00211787)

Notice that the newer Neon2 can use PC2100 memory, something not claimed for the Neon board. Very Odd. Of course, as far as I'm aware there is no multiplication factor which will match 167MHz memory clock speed to a 400MHz or 533MHz FSB, so it seems more likely that it only uses 133MHz for the memory clock speed which ties in with what Everest was telling you.

I was going to suggest you should check your bios setup to see if there's a faster speed for your memory, but now that I know it is HP I think such a suggestion would probably just waste your time.

[hungrylilboy]

..

[lynx]

Search around in Everest, it should tell you exactly what ram you've currently got (not the latency test, that tells you what it is running as). Then try to match it as near as you can. The actual manufacturer probably isn't too important (but if you can match that too so much the better).

The info you want is similar in format to what you got in the latency test (PC2100 DDR SDRAM 2-3-3-6), except that you want to know what timings it would run at as PC2700.

I suspect it will start with 2.5, which is the CAS, but the other numbers are important too. Try to get memory with the same or lower numbers. There's no point in getting PC3200, your system can't utilise its potential so it may even be slower. Isn't this where we came in?

Edit: it isn't so much that HP is a pile of shit (though it may be). The problem with ALL the major manufacturers is that they tell you what you are getting, and that's it. They keep their costs down by giving you no more than exactly what you asked for. If you want a machine that can handle faster memory you need a faster, more expensive chipset, so you would have needed to pay for that when you bought it.

[dzr]

i would prefer corsair