I have a cheapo Packard Bell (£550 on release but £300 to me refurb a year ago) which is a little slow.

It has 2gB of ram: 2GB, 204-pin SODIMM, DDR3 PC3-10600

Can I just buy another or do they need to be a matching pair? I can’t find the answer online.

go to http://www.crucial.com/uk and they will tell you exactly what you need.

Rachel

Ta, been there, doesn’t answer my Q!

Have you run the Crucial System Scanner Tool from their web page?
It should tell you exactly what you have on board and what is the max it can take. It will tell you exactly what you need to upgrade but remember you need a 64 bit operating system to utilise more than 3.5gb of RAM.

Yes, I have W7, which is 64 bit?

My research says it’s best to use 2 identical sticks, my question is how much of a difference does it make not to do so?

Or ask yourself how much paired memory would cost?

how much of a difference does it make not to do so?

Some.

Probably enough so that spending the extra £15 or so on the second stick is worth doing.

W7 can be 32 or 64 bit.

To find out which:

Open System by clicking the Start button Picture of the Start button, right-clicking Computer, and then clicking Properties.

Under System, you can view the system type.

Cheers all, even if it’s 32bit it’s got to be worth doing (running at 70% RAM after a clean install)

Can I upgrade to 64 easily?

Can I upgrade to 64 easily?

It’s a function of the motherboard/cpu.