by Joe Roberts

Created on: May 06, 2008

The most common types of RAM are SD-RAM (ancient), DDR (recently obsolete), DDR2 (fairly new and most common), and DDR3 (brand new and very fast). Finding out your computer's memory type can be achieved in several different ways.

The easiest way to do something with computers is always to use a program that can do it all for you. A common diagnostic tool for computer hardware is CPU-Z. It's very light-weight and provides detailed information about all the main components of your computer. All you have to do is download it from http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php, unzip it and then run cpuz.exe. It will then pop up with a window telling you about your cpu. Click on the "Memory" tab to find out how much RAM you have, what type it is and what speed it's running at.

If you are uncomfortable with or unable to download a diagnostic tool then you can try using a search engine to find the specifications of your motherboard model, if you know it. To find it out, you can reboot your computer and watch the boot screens. The first one should just show a few details about your video card. The second screen will provide details about your motherboard among other things. Press the pause key on your motherboard at any time, as many times as you like. The boot process will not resume until you press another key on your keyboard. Your motherboard type will one of the top lines on this screen. An example is: "MSI P965 Neo2 A7235IMS V3.2 021207".

Some BIOS' may feature another screen you can pause that lists the types of RAM the motherboard supports, and how modules it detects of each. This is usually displayed in a type of table among other technical information.

To find out simply how much RAM you have, you can open "Control Panel" and double-click on "System". This will display a brief summary of your computer's hardware.

To find out more about your RAM, you'll probably need to open up your computer and remove a module. Remember to discharge any static electricity from your body first and then push down on the plastic levers at each end of a RAM module, then pull it out. With any luck you'll find a sticker or stamp providing you with the brand name and/or model number. Some can be easy to translate eg 1GDDR means 1 gigabyte of DDR RAM. If you can't understand it, enter it into a search engine (perhaps with a few added keywords such as "RAM") and see if you get any hits that seem related.

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