How to Buy RAM for a Laptop

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Chris Bryce with superservice.com. I like to tell you how to buy RAM for your laptop computer. You know, couple things to consider in buying RAM, but the very first thing to consider is how much RAM is currently in your laptop and how it's configured. Most manufacturers will have information on their website based on the model number, serial number or combination of both. They will tell you how much RAM is currently in your system and the type that's in there. Some laptops have one slot for increasing their memory, some have none and some have a combination of couple slots. The thing that you're going to want to look at is how many slots are available on your laptop for adding RAM. If you've only got the one slot, or whatever memory you have, such as one gigabyte is in one slot and it's currently occupied by that one gigabyte memory module, then you're going to have to take that one gigabyte memory module out and replace it with something higher. In order to replace with something higher you may go like a two gigabyte or three gigabyte module. Contact the manufacturer of your laptop to find out what the maximum size is that you increase your memory to. If you go out and get a three gigabyte memory module and put it in a system that will only allow you to have two gigabytes, this is not going to work and your system won't do that. So if you go out to get your memory, that's the first thing to look at, is the type of memory that you can put in there and also how many slots you've got available. Let's say that you had two slots and you already had a one gigabyte memory module in one of the slots and you were going to upgrade it to two gigabytes. What you do is go out and get the extra one gigabyte memory module and put it in the second slot. This one increase your memory to two gigabytes. The other option you have, if you want, future upgrade ability, is you can replace the one gigabyte to two gigabyte module and still have your second slot open to increase memory further later on. Again, the key to keep in mind, is make sure you know what the maximum amount of memory is that you can have in your laptop. Next you're going to want to look at different brand names to see what kind of warranties they have. For not very much more money, and sometimes even the same price, you can go with a memory manufacturer that has a lifetime warranty. I strongly suggest that you do this, because if you do, then you got a lifetime warranty on your memory and you never have to worry about problems that you might have, it's always going to be covered. So those are the couple of things to consider when you're buying memory for your laptop."