Computer guru needed

[Ratbag]

You should be fine, as long as it has the correct specs for your MoBo.

Best to stick with the same speed and type - i.e. you appear to have DDR3 chips ATM, so stick with this.

Avoid Hynix chips like the plague. Even cheaper and nastier than Corsair branded chips ...

Take your MoBo book with you to the shop, and also best to take the chips you have also. Don't touch the contacts, and preferably carry them in an anti-static bag. If you haven't got one, put them in a paper envelope. They will be able to positively identify what they are, and the specs. Playing mix-n-match with RAM chips doesn't work IME. I can put another 500 MB chip in one of my computers and all it does is slow it down noticeably ...

[WilSurf]

The "sticks" I have are the Corsairs DDR3 CMV4GX3M2A1333C9.
"Corsair CMV4GX3M2A1333C9 4GB (2x2GB) PC3-10666 (1333MHz) DDR3 Dual Channel RAM, 2x240-pin DIMMs, Non ECC Unbuffered, 9-9-9-24, 1.5V, suitable for Intel and AMD dual channel DDR3 configurations."

[raider]

My brain just exploded reading this thread !

[Ratbag]

The "sticks" I have are the Corsairs DDR3 CMV4GX3M2A1333C9.
"Corsair CMV4GX3M2A1333C9 4GB (2x2GB) PC3-10666 (1333MHz) DDR3 Dual Channel RAM, 2x240-pin DIMMs, Non ECC Unbuffered, 9-9-9-24, 1.5V, suitable for Intel and AMD dual channel DDR3 configurations."

If they are OK for your MoBo, I would buy a pair of 4 GB Kingston chips (i.e. 8 GB = 2 x 4 GB), and install them to slots 1 & 3 (these are the slots the MoBo uses first), and fit your existing chips back in slots 2 & 4 - i.e. the same type/size of chip in the same coloured socket. Make sure they are the same speed and type as your existing chips.

Since you have a 64 bit OS, it should handle this fine.

Just check that your MoBo can handle RAM chips this size (it's in the manual). It should be able to.

[WilSurf]

The manual says that you can install up to 8Gb into the DIMM slots.
I also noticed that hey say that channel A is slot 1 & 2 (A1 and A2) and channel 2 is slot 3 & 4 (B1 and B2).

[Ratbag]

The manual says that you can install up to 8Gb into the DIMM slots.

Into each slot, or in total?
I would be very surprised if any modern MoBo would have an 8 GB maximum memory limit, but I have been surprised many, many times in my life ...  .

I also noticed that hey say that channel A is slot 1 & 2 (A1 and A2) and channel 2 is slot 3 & 4 (B1 and B2).

I love it when they say things like that  . In order to be meaningful, they need to qualify the statement ...
Dual channel chips (pretty much all pairs of chips these days ... ) would normally be placed such that one of the pair is installed in each channel slot. I just checked a MoBo manual that I have to hand (Gigabyte), and they describe the slots the same way. However, chip installation is how I said - one of each pair in the A channel slot and one in the corresponding B channel slot.

Far more informative to look at the memory placment chart that tells you what you should fit, and where ...

[Ratbag]

^ Further to the above, what is the brand and model number of your MoBo?

I can then find and download the manual off the Net.

[WilSurf]

The motherboard is Asus M5A78L-M USB3.
It can handle a maximum of 32 Gb

[Ratbag]

That tells me all I need to know  .

Check out the best price point for Kingston chips, and put that in. I haven't bought any chips for a while, but it's probably cheapest per GB at around the 2 x 4 GB chips.

Something like these:

Kingston 2x 4GB chips at $95 for the pair ...

BTW< Kingston will and do honour their lifetime warranty on everything they sell ...  .

[WilSurf]

Cheers.
Is that in combination with the existing ones?

Sorry for hijacking this topic.

[Ratbag]

^ Yes. Try them with and without.

Time the full opening time of the most demanding program that you use (e.g. Photoshop CS6, or the like), both with one set, both sets, then the other set.

I found that my wife's PC ran much faster with 2 GB of RAM than it did with 2.5 GB because of the slower access method used with the mixed chips and single channel memory access.

As a benchmark, my wife's PC is a 2.40 GHz Core2Duo, running 2 GB of DDR3 RAM and two moderately fast SATA HDDs (I prefer reliability to outright speed ... ). Besides, a 7500 rpm drive with a big on-drive cache is very much faster than the same drive with a smaller or non-existent cache; and as fast as faster spinning drive with a smaller on-drive cache, plus more reliable. After a reboot, it takes around 21 seconds to fully load Photoshop CS5 to the point where the menus will respond to a mouse click.

 My main w/s has a 2.13 GHz Core2Duo, 4 GB of DDR2 RAM and 3x internal SATA HDDs. It takes about 24 seconds to fully load PS6 after a reboot.

Interestingly, my 10 y.o. IBM laptop with 2 GB of "Laptop" RAM and a 320 GB HDD loads PS5 in 17.5 seconds, and it's got a Pentium Mobile single core CPU ... The HDD has a very large cache (for a laptop HDD).

OTOH, I have seen laptops with an i7 CPU, 8 GB RAM and using a SSD that take over 35 seconds to load PS6 ...

It's all in setting the PC up properly (and the OS ... ), and having the right 'balance' of components, IMNSHO ...

[WilSurf]

When I was working on the desktop yesterday, I noticed that using the exernal hard drive slows things down.
Using Wondershare Video Editor, I imported a HD video from the external hard drive and started editing. The sound was like an old LP, it was going back a few times before continuing. When I saved the video to my internal hard drive, re-imported it and start working, it was all good. No delay.

[Ratbag]

The theoretical speed of external HDDs is a headline figure made up by marketing people ...

The actual throughput of a USB2 drive is around 20-30 MB/s; USB3 around 50-60 MB/s. Firewire 400 will actually attain around that speed - 400 Mbps or 50 MB/s. I haven't used any Firewire 800 devices, so cannot say about them.

Any decent internal SATA HDD will be between 100-160 MB/s, depending on its speed (rpm) and cache size (and MoBo/chipset design, memory, etc, etc, etc ... ). So far faster than any USB external HDD

SCSI HDDs are far faster again, but almost none around these days; and bloody expensive, as always.

[nbd73]

Ratbag,
Please help: the PC is now running slower than ever. Have not done anything other than the prescribed steps.  Where do I start, and more importantly why would the PC work better, and now be worse than ever? It's agonisingly slow using internet, but almost as bad accessing files from the hard drive eg photos.

[Ratbag]

Gidday Nigel

Ratbag,
Please help: the PC is now running slower than ever. Have not done anything other than the prescribed steps.  Where do I start, and more importantly why would the PC work better, and now be worse than ever? It's agonisingly slow using internet, but almost as bad accessing files from the hard drive eg photos.

Probably best if you PM me all the details about your PC, operating system and specific problem/s. Also what steps you have done to date.
It is far easier to deal with these things on a one to one basis than it is with them being all mixed up in a normal thread - like this one ... .

[WilSurf]

You might consider creating your own main topic; Ask Ratbag.....

 

[WilSurf]

Got sick after waiting so long for the Video Editor to do something, that I finally ordered 2x4Gb Kingston memory.

[gronk]

OK, here goes again......I downloaded Open Office ( didn't want to pay for Word ).

It works OK, and I did my resume on it and it saved as an  odt file ...now this is where it gets complicated.....apart from the computer not wanting to open the file I just saved, if I attach it to an online application, I'm presuming they won't be able to open it at the other end either ( apart from them stating that doc, pdf and a couple others are the preferred file types )

So, I got smart and scanned the 2 pages after I printed them off and they saved as pdf files ( but there is 2 of them of course ).

But, the online applications will only let you upload one file ( but I have 2 ?? )

Is there an easy way around this......or am I destined to buy Word and be done with it ??

[noel_w]

You should be able to "save as" to a .docx file in openoffice which Office will open.
Select File - Save As
Select docx in the dropdown.
http://www.ehow.com/how_8089597_save-docx-file-open-office.html


You can also install one of many pdf writers which will enable you to print to pdf.
Select Print
Select the appropriate pdf printer
This will then print your file to a saveable pdf file (as one file)
http://www.cutepdf.com/   comes to mind as one I have used in the past

[gronk]

Yep, after following your advice, I can save it to word 97 ( doc file ) which will open back up and I presume send as a doc file ( of course )

But, without retyping the resume, I can't see how I can convert the odt to a doc file once I have already saved it as a odt file. ?

Sorry, I didn't understand the printer bit ??

[noel_w]

If you have saved the file as an odt file then you have saved it in openoffice format. if you then save this file as a doc file then you have saved (or converted) it to a word format as another file. No need to convert it after that as you now have two different files in different formats (of the one file). Once you "save as" to a doc file you are done.


If you install cutepdf on your computer it (in simple terms) installs a new (virtual) printer on your computer. Once this is done you print your file and select the cutepdf printer as your printer. This then (after doing some stuff) saves your file as a pdf file and you can save it where you like on your pc. Just think of it as another printer that prints to a pdf file rather than a physical printer.

[Ratbag]

Gidday Gronk

Open the .ODT file. Go to FILE, SAVE AS, then save it as a .DOC file type (select this type from the drop-down list box).

You can also set the Options in Open Office so that it defaults to MS standard formats - .DOC, .XLS, etc.

ONLY MS could dream up using a programming language (.XML) for saving document files - .DOCX, etc. Is that an open invitation to the script kiddies, or what?

[paceman]

ONLY MS could dream up using a programming language (.XML) for saving document files - .DOCX, etc. Is that an open invitation to the script kiddies, or what?

DOCX format allows for a multitude of advantages...

They did do it for a few good reasons...

[Marschy]

DOCX format allows for a multitude of advantages...

They did do it for a few good reasons...

Sharepoint

[paceman]

Sharepoint

that's one important one, right there...

here's some others:

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/jun/21/comment.comment1
http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2013/04/docx-vs-doc/

and it's an open standard, which is handy...