Adding RAM to a JFL92

Hello everyone. I've recently purchased a JFL92 computer from Micro Express and I'm thinking of adding some more RAM to it, but there are some things I'd like to ascertain before I do so.

The most basic is a terminology question: I thought that the RAM that came with the computer was 2GB DDR2 667 MHz. However, when running a program called CPU-Z to check this explicitly, I found that it is 2GB DDR2 Kingston PC2-5300 at 333 MHz. Searching on Amazon, the PC2-5300 is likewise reported to be at 667 MHz. Is this what I want to buy? What does this 667 MHz refer to if the actual frequency is only half of that?

Also, how important is this frequency? Amazon also offers 800 MHz RAM for roughly the same $50 (though I guess I'd have to buy two of them and replace my old one). Can the JFL92 handle this?

Finally, would my system get much out of an extra 2 GB of RAM? The reason I want it is that it currently takes a rather long time to boot. The current setup is as follows:

Core 2 Duo T9300 @ 2.5 GHz
2GB DDR2-667 RAM
Nvidia 8600M GT (512MB DDR2)
32-Bit Vista Home Premium

I know that 4GB RAM is partly wasted on a 32-Bit OS, but it should still help.

 

Welcome to the forum,

DDR2-667(PC2-5300) is clocked at 333MHZ but due to the Double Data Rate (DDR) it's effective rate is 667MHz.

Frequency is not important and the Santa Rosa Chipset(aka the chipset in your laptop) will downclock DDR2-800 to DDR2-667 speeds so its a waste of money unless its cheaper...

What HDD(Hard drive) do you have?. A faster HDD(7200rpm or high density 5400rpm HDD)should speed up booting. Also look at the Vista tips and tweak guide(its sticked in the windows software forum of NBR).

 

Thank you. The Vista tweak guide looks extremely useful; I'll try it out once I get back from work.

My HDD is 250 GB SATA at 5400rpm, but I would rather try other solutions first before changing it (everything else works OK).

 

Did you try it?

 

Yes, I tried it. It did not work quite as well as I was expecting. Getting rid of the TMM does not seem to do anything for me -- it boots exactly as it was booting before. I got rid of a lot of programs that startup at boot, which is probably a good thing, but did not do much for speeding things up. Stopping the Workstation process likewise did very little.

I guess my expectations were a bit high. The laptop currently boots in approximately 1 minute (maybe a few seconds less than that) and I see that this is consistent with the experiences of other people in that forum. I was hoping for better performance because my previous, 3.5 year old laptop (running XP) was much worse than this one in every respect so I expected much faster boot times. It seems what hardware giveth, Vista taketh.

One thing still kind of bothers me. Immediately after it boots, it does something, but I'm not sure what. It uses about 300MB of RAM and some of the processor with no noticeable effect for about a minute. During this time, it also indicates that there is no network connection, but this is not true (if I open a browser, it works just fine). I'm still trying to figure out what it is doing.

 

Same here, that's why I asked. I follow the instructions and it end up been just like another TV ad, not up to the promises. I also boot around 1'.

 

I found out what the mystery process was -- it was indeed the Workstation thing described on the tweak page. I thought I had killed it, but for some reason it did not stay dead. It seems to be gone for now and I'm more or less satisfied with the booting.

I've also installed the extra 2GB of RAM which raised my memory score a little bit (as expected, Vista only sees ~3 GB worth). We'll see how much difference it makes with NWN2 and other intense programs.

 

What workstation thing?

 

If you run services.msc , you'll see that Vista starts up a service called Workstation at boot. In my case (I suspect it's because of the low signal wireless connection), this takes it approximately 45-60 seconds during which it takes up RAM and processing power and does not acknowledge that it is already connected to the internet. I disabled this without any negative consequences that I can see.

 

Did it improved the booting cycle?

 

It depends on how you define booting cycle. If you consider booting to end at the point when you see the Windows screen and are capable of doing something, then no. But if you define it to be from the point you push the power button to the point where the computer is idle and waiting for input, then yes.

 

From power on until you can run any application, including internet.