poor quality ram slowing down pc?

sue_donym · 05-23-2007, 03:18 PM

Hello,

I am a UK resident using an 18 month old, non brand home pc. i am running an intel p4 3,2 ghz pc with 2 gb ram. to be honest, my computer has always ran a lot slower than I would expect it to - for example when running even a moderately old game, the graphics would become jerky and the gameplay woulld slow down, or when running multiple applications simultaneously - even for exaple when using itunes and outlook both programs become tortorously slow to respond to inputs and difficult to use. this has become paritulcaly irritatingly lately. for some reason the computer will often be fine initially, and then slow down rather suddenly 15-20 minutes after being turned on. i have been fumbling around in my own amateurish way trying to diagnose the problem, basically because im very tight and dont want to spend any money sorting it out. the pc was bought from a frankly fairly amateurish company on ebay, because it was relatively cheap. I remember reading at the time an article on a site somewhere about how some lesser known companies were known to advertise seemingly high spec pcs at low prices to fool mugs like me, and put these pcs together poorly using bad quality memory/hardware. Cleverly, i decided to ignore the article at the time. It was very cheap. Subsequently, I have always been suspicious that they used cheap or shoddy hardware/memory to put the computer together. i opened up the case the other day to install a new wireless card, and had a look at the RAM whilst i was there. It is branded as buffalo ddr2 sdram. it also had something about being non ecc/unbuffered, which didnt really mean anything to me. basically my question is whetheer or not buffalo memory has a reputation at all for being cheap unreliable memory, and if so whether this couldl account for my pc underperforming, and if not whether anyone had any other idea as to what the problem could be?

Thanks for taking the time to help. Sorry if I went on a bit there.

**Terrister** · 05-23-2007, 04:24 PM

Download the software from the site below and run it overnight.
http://www.memtest86.com/

**Kalim** · 05-24-2007, 04:04 AM

Buffalo is good as a brand, but it depends which Buffalo RAM sticks you have.

Graphics quality/speed will depend mainly on your GPU rather than RAM or CPU, although CPU needs to be fair powerful.

**speedster123** · 05-24-2007, 05:35 AM

If you are using 4 - 512 modules, take 1 out and try it.
Also make sure the device manager is clean, you do not want any yellow alerts triggering hiccups in your system.
What power supply do you have installed?

05-23-2007, 03:18 PM	#1 (permalink)
sue_donym Registered User Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 1 OS: Windows XP	poor quality ram slowing down pc? Hello, I am a UK resident using an 18 month old, non brand home pc. i am running an intel p4 3,2 ghz pc with 2 gb ram. to be honest, my computer has always ran a lot slower than I would expect it to - for example when running even a moderately old game, the graphics would become jerky and the gameplay woulld slow down, or when running multiple applications simultaneously - even for exaple when using itunes and outlook both programs become tortorously slow to respond to inputs and difficult to use. this has become paritulcaly irritatingly lately. for some reason the computer will often be fine initially, and then slow down rather suddenly 15-20 minutes after being turned on. i have been fumbling around in my own amateurish way trying to diagnose the problem, basically because im very tight and dont want to spend any money sorting it out. the pc was bought from a frankly fairly amateurish company on ebay, because it was relatively cheap. I remember reading at the time an article on a site somewhere about how some lesser known companies were known to advertise seemingly high spec pcs at low prices to fool mugs like me, and put these pcs together poorly using bad quality memory/hardware. Cleverly, i decided to ignore the article at the time. It was very cheap. Subsequently, I have always been suspicious that they used cheap or shoddy hardware/memory to put the computer together. i opened up the case the other day to install a new wireless card, and had a look at the RAM whilst i was there. It is branded as buffalo ddr2 sdram. it also had something about being non ecc/unbuffered, which didnt really mean anything to me. basically my question is whetheer or not buffalo memory has a reputation at all for being cheap unreliable memory, and if so whether this couldl account for my pc underperforming, and if not whether anyone had any other idea as to what the problem could be? Thanks for taking the time to help. Sorry if I went on a bit there.

05-23-2007, 04:24 PM	#2 (permalink)
Terrister Moderator Hardware Forum Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: West Georgia, USA Posts: 6,905 OS: Xp	Re: poor quality ram slowing down pc? Download the software from the site below and run it overnight. http://www.memtest86.com/ __________________

05-24-2007, 04:04 AM	#3 (permalink)
Kalim Roaming To Help Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 5,609 OS: Many	Re: poor quality ram slowing down pc? Buffalo is good as a brand, but it depends which Buffalo RAM sticks you have. Graphics quality/speed will depend mainly on your GPU rather than RAM or CPU, although CPU needs to be fair powerful.

05-24-2007, 05:35 AM	#4 (permalink)
speedster123 Mentor Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: United States-New York Posts: 3,911 OS: xp pro My System	Re: poor quality ram slowing down pc? If you are using 4 - 512 modules, take 1 out and try it. Also make sure the device manager is clean, you do not want any yellow alerts triggering hiccups in your system. What power supply do you have installed? __________________ Infection Detection and Removal Thermal Grease Instructions Bench Test