How to find out PC's RAM upgrade max??

[Mountainmirrors]

How do I find out how much RAM I can stuff into my PC?
It's a dinosaur with around 384 megs of RAM. Measly I must say...
Is there a place in XP I can look to see what it's set up to handle?
Thanks!

 

[DAFFYDRUNK]

What is the make or model. If it's a custom one, what's the mainboard make/model?

 

[Mountainmirrors]

It's an HP Pavillion. Not sure how to find out much else...

 

[Bulls Hit]

It all depends on your motherboard. Find the model of motherboard in the literature that came with your PC, then do a google search on it.
384MB sounds like you've got 256MB & 128MB sticks in there, or 3 128MB sticks. Open it up and have a look. If you've got no spare slots, you'll have to toss out some existing memory

 

[DAFFYDRUNK]

Also, depending on how old it is you might have to buy low density memory which is more epxensive. You'll know when you run down to the office store to grab a cheapie 256 MB module, and it either doesn't work or sees it as 128MB. If I knew the model I could tell you, but only knowing it's a Pavilion doesn't help much.

 

[Ed Dixon]

Max RAM is driven by motherboard and BIOS installed there. HP should have data on their web site to show this info for your model.

Many older PCs max out at 512. Newer models go higher.

PC Performance is a combo of memory, PC speed, and other factors like bus speed. Adding more memory may not help if one or more of the others is already a bottleneck.

Ed