ncient RAM question

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badaxer

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Mar 17, 2007
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I posed this question on the hewlett-Pachark product forum but it's dead there. No answers. This forum has biggerbrained guys so I'll ask you guys.

My friend owns a museum piece - an HP Pavilion a200n which came with 256 GB of PC2100 RAM.

She wants to upgrade this to the maximum 1 GB. The RAM compatibility program on the HP site suggests PC3200 RAM even though it sold with PC2100 RAM. But when I use other RAM configurators on memory company sites like Crucial and OCZ, I get conflicting results. Some suggest only the original PC2100 RAM is compatible. Others have claimed PC2700 and PC3200 are compatible. What gives? I am not tech savvy. Are these PC2700 and PC3200 sticks backward compatible to the a200n?

If it helps, the FSB of the a200n is 400 GHz.
here's some product specs on the HP a200n PC
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...s&dlc=en&product=329403&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN
 
I don't have a definitive answer for you but, knowing how finicky older HP MB's could be, I recommend sticking with 2 - 512 mb pc2100 sticks.
 
I 'spoke' to a live tech on the HP site...he didn't know! He's gonna have his supervisor check...:(
 
PC3200 will clock down to 2100 speed. Looking at your first link, the bus on that system only runs up to pc2100 speeds. So, unless you can purchase pc3200 for the same or cheaper price than pc2100, I'd stick with the 2100.

Loin
 
Why thank you, my Lord Sir Loin of the CyberWorld.

Just so I can understand this better:

Speed supported PC2100 MB/sec
- this means PC2100 memory runs at 2100 MB/sec? What is a MB/sec?
PC3200 runs at 3200 MB/sec?

I read elsewhere that the FBS was 400 MHz. Is this something different?
 
Let's back up a bit.

Ordinarily, if you want to use PC3200 memory in a system that normally takes PC2100, there's no problem with this, since the PC3200 memory will simply behave as PC2100 memory.

The only reason I can think of, as to why some may not recommend PC3200 for that system, is that more and more PC3200 memory modules these days, use higher density DRAM chips, and that maybe the motherboard can only take the lower density chips.
 
Unabomber said:
Let's back up a bit.

Ordinarily, if you want to use PC3200 memory in a system that normally takes PC2100, there's no problem with this, since the PC3200 memory will simply behave as PC2100 memory.

The only reason I can think of, as to why some may not recommend PC3200 for that system, is that more and more PC3200 memory modules these days, use higher density DRAM chips, and that maybe the motherboard can only take the lower density chips.
Click to expand...

+1

Physically, PC2100 is the same all the way to PC3200. What matter is that it's DDR memory. The faster grade will be able to run at lower speeds so beside the rare cases pointed out above, it should work fine.

Myself, I have upgraded a bunch of Dell computers which initially take PC2100 only, with PC3200 sets and it works fine. However, I had a issue with 2-3 Samsung sticks (one-sided compared to the rest, who are two-sided).

 
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