What kind of memory do I need for an emachine T3410?

[Relztrah]

I have the emachine T3410 currently with 512MB DDR 400 MHz PC3200. I would like to replace this with 2 GB. Can I simply purchase any DDR RAM or do I need to consider other factors for compatibility with my motherboard?

[jlreich]

DDR is easy, pretty much any DDR will work. Just stick to the major manufacturers and you can't really go wrong. Crucial, Corsair, Kingston, but even the other brands should be fine.

[FTT]

What to look for is if your motherboard can use high density RAM or not. The low density RAM is almost twice the price. I have 2 old mobos here, an ASUS and an AOpen. The ASUS is fussy and only runs low density RAM but the AOpen is not and it handles high density just fine.

What is the chipsets on your eMachines? Look on thje Northbridge chip and post back. I believe we can Google the info and find out if your board is or is not affected by RAM densities.

I upgraded both pc's, some RAM from eBay and some other RAM from craigslist. You are probably looking at $35 to $60 for 2 gigs depending on how lucky you are at the time of your search. I got 1gig for about $27 on eBay but the craigslist RAM was a nice matched pair (2x 1gig) of dual channel Patriot 400mhz for $35!! :cool: I had to drive 40 minutes one way to get it so the deal was not as sweet if you consider gas prices these days... :rolleyes:

[Relztrah]

I'm not sure which one is the Northbridge chip, but here (http://www.fic.com.tw/product/motherboard/AMD/K8MC51G.aspx) is a link to my mobo.

Thanks for your help

[jlreich]

It is a K8 platform based on the nForce5 chipset, you really shouldn't have any issues with high density ram. It is a watered down mATX board, but it still should support high density ram without an issue. There could be rare exceptions, but any board with a PCIe x16 slot and SATA II should be late enough to support high density ram without question.

If you want to be sure go use one of the memory tools at your favorite memory manufacturer and get the part numbers for compatible memory, then go to your favorite place and look for those part numbers where it will likely be cheaper.

[FTT]

Jlreich is right.

Just make sure you get DDR 400 or DDR1 or pc3200

Not DDR2 400 or pc2 3200

Just looked out there for ya and the pickin's aren't as good as they were awhile ago. Maybe you can strike it lucky with a bid, or just bite the bullet and grab some from NewEgg or some place similar. Looks like $50 to $60 is about as good as it's gonna get right now for a 2 gig kit.

Good luck

[Relztrah]

I purchased two sticks on eBay (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemVersion&item=250441462696&view=all&tid=598504726015) for $80 which was specified for the emachine T3410. When I stuck it in my machine it causes it to auto-reboot after about a minute or 2. Obviously I will return the RAM to the seller for a refund, which I can within 30 days. But what happened, and is there a way to prevent this? According to the website for the manufacturer of my mobo, it will accommodate up to 2GB.

[jlreich]

Sounds like the ram is bad. When we used to see problems with density issues it would usually result in only half the ram being seen or not being recognized at all. I don't recall ever having one where it would crash the system due to density issues. Not even with plain old SDRAM, which is the type of ram density issues were most common with.

[mjc]

I'll second JL on that...

It's kind of funny dropping in a 512MB stick to replace a 256MB stick and end up with 256MB after the swap...but that is the typical 'density' issue.