How to Swap RAM to Another Computer

Video Transcript

"One of the easiest things you can do to speed up your computer is to upgrade its RAM. Hi, I'm Charles Stewart Jr. and I'm going to show you how to swap RAM from one computer to the next. A common scenario is, let's say you have two computers in the house and one of them dies, well, or let's say someone gives you a computer that's dead and you're trying to scavenge whatever parts you can from it. And a lot of people, since RAM is such an easy thing to do to swap out, is people always try to take RAM from an older computer and put it into another computer. Which is definitely cool to do, the main thing you want to make sure of is that they are compatible, and that's a big issue with a lot of people. Usually, as just as a rule of thumb, you want to make sure your computers were around the same year. So, let's say both these computers were built around 2003, 2004 then chances are of them having compatible RAM is, you know, a common thing. But, again, you want to make sure. So, the easiest way to do that is to go to the manufacturer's website. This is a Sony Vaio. So, you'd want to go to the website and checkout the model number and their support section and find out what kind of RAM this computer has in it. Same with this. This is a computer that I built a few years ago and I want to make sure that the, both RAM modules are compatible. I'm finding out this one, I find out you can, when I pulled out a RAM stick out of this one, sometimes you can find out what's going on with the RAM just, they'll label it on the actual RAM stick. So, this one is telling me it's a DVR 333. So, that way I know what's going on with that one. So, when we get into his computer, you'll look and find the RAM slots. This one's a little bit more compacted than this one. But you can find the RAM slots because they all look the same. They'll be, you know, series of three to four slots running right next to each other. And then you go in and you pop the tabs out and you can pull the RAM stick out. And, while I've gone ahead and looked at the manufacturer's website, I know that both of these RAM sticks are compatible in the other's computer. But it lets the Idin and it's also, luckily, there's something written right here so I can verify. And, while this RAM is slightly faster, it's a DDR 400. A 333 and a 400 should be able to work with each other. The only difference is, this motherboard probably won't be able to run at the same speed as this, which isn't a problem. It'll just take it as fast as it can go even though this RAM can go faster than that RAM. So, now that we've got it, we want to go over to the computer that we're going to be moving it to and we're going to look for our RAM slots which we found right here. And, you want to look at your RAM and make sure that there's a little notch in there, and then on that notch is how you're going to line it up inside the computer. And, just on a side note, whenever you're handling electronics, you want to make sure you're grounded to something so that you're not accidentally giving a static discharge to it. Because, what that will do is it will destroy this component right here, and that's a lot of money you're wasting or defeating the purpose of transferring the RAM. You can do that by buying a strip or just touching the case before you touch any electronic component. OKay, so now we're going to go put it in. We're going to slide it in and line it up on the rails. And then once it's in you're just going to push until you hear it click. And once it clicks you just push the tabs up and now the RAM module's in there. And now to make sure it's worked properly, when you go to start up the computer, usually sometimes when you boot it up, it will tell you the RAM on the boot screen as it's figuring it out for itself. Or, when you get into windows, you can right click on my computer and go to hardware or properties and look up your hardware profile and it will tell you how much RAM is in your computer. And, usually you check that before you do the upgrade so you can see, you know, the before and after picture and if it's higher than the number you originally had then you know it's working properly. And, you should definitely notice a significant speed increase in your computer. And that's how to swap RAM from one computer to the next."