desktop with intel atom

[big soft moose]

Okay random question - at work we've been donated a small desktop which is running a intel atom processor with 1 gb of ram (compaq)

it runs okay (all we ever use it for is running serif apps which can't be installed on the work machines for reasons too silly to go into) but could stand to be faster.

Question is, is it feasible to upgrade the ram (its running XP so i'm guess 4gb would be the theoretical limit) and if so what type of ram is it likely to take (e.g since its running a laptop processor will it also have a laptop motherboard and need laptop ram - or will it be a desk top set up ? )

(incidentally I can't ask our IT team because we arent supposed to have non standard machines in the office - but as its not networked and only used as a stand alone they can get ****ed .... they generally have the IT knowledge of a small wombat anyway )

 

[neil_g]

What make and model is it?

 

[big soft moose]

its a compaq CQ2300

 

[arad85]

Looks like the motherboard has a single slot and can take 2G max.

See: http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Desktop-Hardware/Max-Memory-for-a-CQ2300/td-p/230754

and:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...=en&dlc=en&cc=us&lang=en&product=4025229#N112

Where it says:

Single channel memory architecture
One 240-pin DDR2 DIMM socket
Supported DIMM types:
PC2-3200 (400 MHz)
PC2-4200 (533 MHz)
Non-ECC memory only, unbuffered
Supports a single 2 GB DDR2 DIMM
Supports up to 2 GB

 

[big soft moose]

cool - so the next question is, is it worth putting a 2G stick in - ie how much will it speed the machine up (as i'm aware that the real limit on speed is the cpu)

we've already done the usual soft optimisation things - setting to run for performance not visual effects, power plan, disabled thumbnails, defrag, reduciong things that vrun on start up, getting rid of norton etc - the only one i havent tried is a clean install of the operating system , but thats because we don't have a disc.

I suspect the bottom line is that the machine isnt particularly suitable for the DTP tasks we are trying to use it for - but we have to work with what we've got (the annoying thing is that the official machines are more than capable but the only DTP software that IT will allow is adobe indesign - which our budget can't afford )

 

[arad85]

Depends if you are swapping memory or not. XP doesn't cache as far as I know, so unless you are swapping stuff to disk, you won't make it any quicker. Bring up the performance monitor and monitor memory usage when you are maxing what you want to do on it...