RAM

This part of your system may be the most important part of it. There are many types of RAM. RAM stands for Random Access Memory. This is a little green stick inside your computer that allows for things to be found more or less quickly.

These green sticks are vital to the operation of your PC. Now you may see the amount of RAM you have every time you boot your computer up, that is if you can see some of the BIOS settings before your computer enters windows. This is the line of numbers that increases incredibly fast when you boot it up.

There once was a time when 8 megabytes of RAM was acceptable, now if you do not have at least 64 megabytes of RAM you are behind the times. Most people shouldn’t need more then 128 megabytes of RAM. The high-end systems will have usually 256 megabytes of RAM.

You would expect with so much importance placed on such a small item there would be one type and it would be somewhat expensive, if you thought this your dead wrong. This is a relatively cheap item in terms of importance and what you get. The most common type of RAM is pc100. This means that your motherboard’s system bus must have the capability of running at 100 Hz. Most RAM being sold now is pc133, which is slightly faster, and more reliable. If you choose the right RAM for your machine you will never need to replace it; you may need to add more, but not replace it.

Most of the sticks come in many different sizes, they are green with little black boxes on the sides of the stick, these boxes are the memory. The sticks can range in size from 16 megabytes to 512 megabytes, it is uncommon to see 8 and 512, and the normal size is between 64 and 256 megabytes. The most common size is 168 pins on the stick. On the stick it will appear that there are missing pins, do not worry this is normal, they are to adjust the RAM, either buffered, un-buffered, and then the voltage, 5, 3.3 volts or a reserved spot. Consult the information that came with your motherboard to make sure you are choosing the right RAM for your system. There is one more choice when buying RAM, there is “RAM” and then there is SDRAM, DRAM, RDRAM, and other various types.

Installation is very simple, simply place in the DIMM socket, the socket will be quite long, push is firmly, and either the teeth on either side will hold it straight when you push it in, or when the RAM is inserted, push the teeth in toward the RAM and that will secure the RAM in place.

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