Upgrading ram need help please

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1307 posts

Uber Geek

#3276889 30-Aug-2024 00:19

Twalknz72: Yep this is EXACTLY what he does. He's always listening to something, YouTube, gaming and generally has a browser page or 3 open. He's not looking to upgrade at this time but just squeeze a wee bit more out of what he has hence the addition of a bit of ram. Maybe a full upgrade in a couple of years, when running his games is a real problem, but for now just a wee tweak will do.

Best to monitor memory usage with something like hwinfo, you want to find out if it is at capacity and paging to disk before committing to a purchase. I will agree with others that buying same spec would be best unless you have someone you know who can tune memory (most retail shops do not) or the lower spec memory is more expensive than higher spec.

This is assuming that insufficient memory is the culprit, the common symptom is brief freezing/stutter during gaming. If he is not suffering this, or is just wanting a general performance increase then the only options are to upgrade or learn overclocking.

@K8Toledo I agree with the part about a 400MHz increase not amounting to much, but the rest is not relevant or even accurate. There are many posts/videos online on results of memory overclocking, not just for bandwidth but overall latency.

I would also suggest removing the photo as it includes something you shouldn’t be posting publicly.

Edit: a video as example of OP’s 10th gen and zen 2, also reiterating for OP that you have to jump to 3600-4000 CL14ish and not be GPU bound to see anything noticeable. Again, please focus on other parts of the PC unless you are actually running out of memory.

Qazzy03

478 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3276897 30-Aug-2024 06:24

Twalknz72:

Yep this is EXACTLY what he does. He's always listening to something, YouTube, gaming and generally has a browser page or 3 open. He's not looking to upgrade at this time but just squeeze a wee bit more out of what he has hence the addition of a bit of ram. Maybe a full upgrade in a couple of years, when running his games is a real problem, but for now just a wee tweak will do.

I think going to 32GB is reasonable, especially if not wanting or needing to upgrade in the next couple of years.

I had a look at pricespy for 2 x 8 kits of ddr4 ram and honestly the 2666 and 3200mhz are about the same price for another 16 GB of ram.

If it does work out cheaper to get another 2 kits of ram and they are 3200 mhz, you can use them, but they just clock down to 2666 mhz.

Recommendation before buying new, post in the GZ wanted to buy section or check trademe if anyone has DDR4 ram they have lying around and would like to offload.

I know I had some random older generation sticks that I sold for like $10 each.

This was one of the cheaper kits I could find new, but you could also check out aliexpress.

https://notbadtech.co.nz/products/8gb-2666mhz-walram-ddr4-dimm-ram-with-heatsink-black

Rust

99 posts

Master Geek

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#3276900 30-Aug-2024 06:57

Not sure if this is relevant to the topic or not, but on the subject of RAM and gaming my friend plays a lot of Escape from Tarkov and has discord running also to steam with other players. He was constantly getting server disconnections and upgraded from 16gb to 32gb ram on the advise of some forum. Completely solved his issue.

Twalknz72

156 posts

Master Geek

#3276906 30-Aug-2024 07:46

Rust:
Not sure if this is relevant to the topic or not, but on the subject of RAM and gaming my friend plays a lot of Escape from Tarkov and has discord running also to steam with other players. He was constantly getting server disconnections and upgraded from 16gb to 32gb ram on the advise of some forum. Completely solved his issue.

Yep this is very much part of his issue and

"Qazzy03
This is assuming that insufficient memory is the culprit, the common symptom is brief freezing/stutter during gaming. If he is not suffering this, or is just wanting a general performance increase then the only options are to upgrade or learn overclocking."

This as well. I don't have a clue about over clocking and would hate to damage the PC. I think we'll try the extra ram before looking into that.

Qazzy03, would there be any compatability issue with the ram you put up and what's already in the PC?

Qazzy03

478 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3276909 30-Aug-2024 08:07

To the best of my knowledge no compatibility issues with putting 2 of the sticks I listed in the pc.

I wouldn't bother learning to overstock ram unless you want to do it as a hobby. It's a lot of time and troubleshooting.

Twalknz72

156 posts

Master Geek

#3276910 30-Aug-2024 08:21

SpartanVXL:
Twalknz72: Yep this is EXACTLY what he does. He's always listening to something, YouTube, gaming and generally has a browser page or 3 open. He's not looking to upgrade at this time but just squeeze a wee bit more out of what he has hence the addition of a bit of ram. Maybe a full upgrade in a couple of years, when running his games is a real problem, but for now just a wee tweak will do.

Best to monitor memory usage with something like hwinfo, you want to find out if it is at capacity and paging to disk before committing to a purchase. I will agree with others that buying same spec would be best unless you have someone you know who can tune memory (most retail shops do not) or the lower spec memory is more expensive than higher spec.

This is assuming that insufficient memory is the culprit, the common symptom is brief freezing/stutter during gaming. If he is not suffering this, or is just wanting a general performance increase then the only options are to upgrade or learn overclocking.

@K8Toledo I agree with the part about a 400MHz increase not amounting to much, but the rest is not relevant or even accurate. There are many posts/videos online on results of memory overclocking, not just for bandwidth but overall latency.

I would also suggest removing the photo as it includes something you shouldn’t be posting publicly.

Edit: a video as example of OP’s 10th gen and zen 2, also reiterating for OP that you have to jump to 3600-4000 CL14ish and not be GPU bound to see anything noticeable. Again, please focus on other parts of the PC unless you are actually running out of memory.

So I've looked and I can't seem to figure out how to delete or change the pic or the GPU post. Do you know how please?

SpartanVXL

1307 posts

Uber Geek

#3277123 30-Aug-2024 11:21

Twalknz72: So I've looked and I can't seem to figure out how to delete or change the pic or the GPU post. Do you know how please?

Don’t worry, not your image I was referring to.

Yes you can buy a different speed kit and have all dimms use the timings of the slowest kit.

Just for peace of mind, do check memory usage while your son is doing his normal activities. It can even be as simple as having task manager/ resource manager in windows open and watching the memory tab.

Without more info it really is a stab in the dark if this is actually the problem you’re trying to solve. Unless you don’t mind the cost of extra ddr4 of course.

Lenovo

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Twalknz72

156 posts

Master Geek

#3277215 30-Aug-2024 16:53

SpartanVXL:
Twalknz72: So I've looked and I can't seem to figure out how to delete or change the pic or the GPU post. Do you know how please?

Don’t worry, not your image I was referring to.

Yes you can buy a different speed kit and have all dimms use the timings of the slowest kit.

Just for peace of mind, do check memory usage while your son is doing his normal activities. It can even be as simple as having task manager/ resource manager in windows open and watching the memory tab.

Without more info it really is a stab in the dark if this is actually the problem you’re trying to solve. Unless you don’t mind the cost of extra ddr4 of course.

I'll do that, task manager. The 2666Mhz DDR4 isn't much and if it helps him get another year or two out of it it's worth it. It is a 4 year old computer so very happy with how long it's lasted. We've only had to upgrade his 500GB hard drive to a 2T about a year after we'd bought it.

Lias

5589 posts

Uber Geek

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#3277551 31-Aug-2024 17:31

Rust:

Not sure if this is relevant to the topic or not, but on the subject of RAM and gaming my friend plays a lot of Escape from Tarkov and has discord running also to steam with other players. He was constantly getting server disconnections and upgraded from 16gb to 32gb ram on the advise of some forum. Completely solved his issue.

Tarkov is indeed a massive RAM hog, it can exceed 16gb usage all by itself.

I'm a geek, a gamer, a dad, a Quic user, and an IT Professional. I have a full rack home lab, size 15 feet, an epic beard and Asperger's. I'm a bit of a Cypherpunk, who believes information wants to be free and the Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. If you use my Quic signup you can also use the code R570394EKGIZ8 for free setup.

Twalknz72

156 posts

Master Geek

#3281753 13-Sep-2024 15:49

Well we bought the extra 2 sticks of DDR4 2666 mhz ram and took it into our local tech. We dropped it off at 11am yesterday with the expectation of collecting it by end of business that day as we were getting a windows backup and reinstall. I was told at 2:30pm that they wouldn't be able to fit both sticks of ram because the heat sink was pretty big and taking up space, OK that will have to be addressed later. What I am really struggling with is it's 3:45pm the next day and they still aren't done with transferring the data back onto the pc. Is this normal? This really seems excessive.

We replaced the small HD with a Samsung 970 evo plus 2TBS (2280) NVMe SSD about 6 months /1 year after purchase.

Jase2985

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#3281764 13-Sep-2024 16:30

Depends on the data and how they/what they are doing. They are likely not sitting in front of it the whole time and just setting it off doing something and coming back later.

Qazzy03

478 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3281785 13-Sep-2024 17:15

Unlikely the tech looked at the PC until 2pm-ish as the heatsink issue would have been a quick spot once opened.

Data transfer can take a while, it depends on a lot of factors speed of the SSD and the drive the tech is using, the type of connection being used, the data transferring tool etc.
Then the Windows re-install can take a while, then updating any drivers and loading back the data to the SSD.

Yeah, I can believe it not being ready today, especially if it is not a high priority to the tech.

If I was doing it myself on a lazy Sunday and I was potting around.
It would probably be an 8 to 12-hour 'job from start to finish, assuming there are 100's of gigabytes of random files on the O/S drive.

Twalknz72

156 posts

Master Geek

#3281815 13-Sep-2024 17:31

It would have been nice had they given me a time frame as this pc is used for online school, they knew this. I was lead to bel, by the office person, that it would likely be ready by business yesterday. I will ensure to get a "worst case cenerio" time frame for any future work being done.
Thanks

Twalknz72

156 posts

Master Geek

#3281837 13-Sep-2024 19:10

We've just got the pc back, plugged it in and the bios page comes up. I'm lost

Jase2985

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#3281844 13-Sep-2024 19:22

Twalknz72: We've just got the pc back, plugged it in and the bios page comes up. I'm lost

Thats not good

but if you want help with that, you will need to provide more information

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