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My friend has a Dell Dimension 4300 and has only 128 mb of ram. His computer is a 1 ghz Pentium 4 but it lags a lot and goes slow. He will click on a folder and literally 5 minutes later the window will come up. I think he needs memory. He wanted to upgrade to 512 mb. So how do we know what kind of memory to put in his computer. Does it matter? Like is is SDRAM or DDR, I have no clue. I wouldn't want him to buy it and then it wouldn't work. :-\

Also, he has 2 slots, (1 is currently being occupied by the 128 mb one), and if we put in a 512 and if we kept in the 128 as well, would it still work good?

they never made 1ghz p4's. is it a p3? search on the dell model and see what google says.

maybe it is a p3 then. i dont know. we right clicked on my computer and went to properties, and it said 1ghz, and 128 mg of ram. what is slowing it down. i know we need memory but you cant just buy any kind right?

Before wasting money (I've used Windows XP on Pentium Pro 180 MHz with 64 MB RAM without any noticeable slowdowns) let your friend do the following:
* check his hard drive for ad/spy-ware and viruses
* in case of a Windows NT-based OS, turn off any unneeded services
* delete all the unneeded start-up items
* delete all the temporary files
* check the disk for errors and defragment it
In case it doesn't help, buy more SDRAM (although I'm not totally sure)...

he has formatted his hard drive numerous times, and it still happens. plus when he plays this one game, it will lag a lot. his pc is good enough for it too i think. i think the problem is he needs more memory. he does only have 128 mb :-\

Get him to try another OS... It might be because of little RAM, but 5 minutes (or even two times less) is just weird.

It doesn't even take 5 seconds on a pentium 90 with 16MB RAM.

To answer your question: ask the computer nicely.

what might be the problem then?

Dumb answer but... have you tried defragging it?

It should be PC133 SDRAM on the Dimension 4300.

Best to check though. Look on the 128Mb DIMM and see if it has a sticker saying what type of RAM it is. Failing that look for a chip number and google it up. If all else fails then you might try looking in the BIOS for DRAM options (Mine has them, that doesn't mean yours will) that will give you the current rate.

I'd have to go with the others here, 5 minutes to open a folder doesn't sound like a memory problem. Sounds more like your HD is on its way out, misconfigured, or something is sucking up resources in the background. XP can run like a dog when you hit virtual memory, but not to that extent under normal conditions. You might want to check under task manager when this 5 minute thing hits and see what else is sucking up reources.

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Off-topic:

This is suspiciously similar to a recurring XP flame on Slashdot. It might be for real (Which is why I answered), but then again it might not be .

what is slash dot? if you are saying i have posted this on multiple boards, this is the only board i use. i dont post or look on any others, except the DosGames.com forum.

http://www.slashdot.org/

Joey wrote: what is slash dot? if you are saying i have posted this on multiple boards, this is the only board i use. i dont post or look on any others, except the DosGames.com forum.

Sorry, paranoia mode kicking in .