Very simple question about RAM speeds and compatability

[fray_bentos]

I have a laptop which is incredibly slow at times so i intended to upgrade the RAM. The installed ram is 256Mb of 200 Pin, non-ECC, pc2700 DDR SO-DIMM.

I would guess that using pc3200 would have no benefit over using pc2700, is this correct?

Sorry for the simple question but i've been meaning to sort this for some time and getting this answered might make me actually do it.

Thanks.

[teachmech]

Putting 3200 ram in will make no difference as it will run at 2700 which is what the chipset supports. However upgrading to more than 256 ie 512 or 1 Gb will make a difference.

[-ChEM-]

if you get a lot of stuttering and hard disk activity adding extra ram could help, but if its really slow you probably just need to give it a clean format

ram frequency doesnt usually matter at all for A64 chips, not with a slow cpu anyway, once you start getting up to the 2.5ghz region it can make a difference

for athlon XP the important thing is that the RAM is the same speed as the FSB, apart from that it doesnt matter

intel chips do like high RAM speeds though, hence the early jump to DDR2 when AMD didnt need to

[fray_bentos]

Thanks for the quick answers, i'll order 512 of the pc2700 from Scan and may think about re-installing Windows too as it was pre-installed with Packard Bell rubbish.

Thanks.