wrote:
My HP Pavilion Desktop already has 512 MB Ram (max according to
specs)

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...name=bph06796#

What can i do to make this old beast go faster? Other than put it on
the Acela, i don't know what to do. What would happen if i put 2 x
512 MB memory sticks in place of the others? can i "piggyback" them?
Can someone please advise?

Rich

I'm afraid the answer is "buy a new beast". I have a Tualatin 1.4GHz
processor, and that is about as fast as they got (mine is an S370
chip, but I have a Slot 1 adapter so I can use it on a Slot 1
computer).

So slapping in a faster processor, would make the machine faster
in name only. You'd likely not even notice the difference. The rest
of the machine could hold such a processor back. SDRAM running
at 100MHz, isn't exactly "fast". Modern memory, like DDR3-2000,
transfers data at 20x of the rate. (Modern memory still has
poor latency characteristics, so not all speed factors scaled
as well as the bus rate did.) Modern memory has also supported
much larger quantities of memory. The largest desktop DIMM might
have been 4GB in a single stick of RAM, whereas the sticks you're
using are 16x smaller.

Overclocking would be your best option, if you lived on a
island and has no other options at hand.

Ten years ago, there were people doing stuff like this. Running
their computer bus at 150MHz, instead of 100MHz or 133MHz. Actually,
it turns out, that as of today, you could find memory chips
of that type and operating voltage, that run at 200MHz. So
eventually, faster memory chips were made. But the thing is,
the "wheels would fall off the computer" if you did that.
I doubt the chipset could keep up if you tried that, and
it would crash.

http://www.tipperlinne.com/p2b-s150.htm

If you scroll to the bottom of this page, you can see the
best platform of its generation. This P2B-DS motherboard
has two Slot 1 processors, each running at 1.5GHz. The
memory is 768MB running at 150MHz. And just about any
$300 Walmart computer would blow the doors off this now :-)
It's still pretty to look at though. Ten years ago,
this would have been drool-worthy.

http://www.tipperlinne.com/p2bmod

Paul