I exchanged my TR3A for a new S150 and had to remove my extra 512MB of Kingston RAM I bought.  Now I would like to use it in my S but I know that the TR was running PC2100 while the S’s run PC2700. 
My question is, can I use my 512MB PC2100, former TR, memory with a 256MB PC2700 stick that is already inside my S.  I know I read something about this somewhere but I can’t seem to recall what it said…  (Actually I have dual 256MB sticks but I clearly have to remove one.  If necessary I will just buy dual 512MB PC2700 sticks and sell my extra 256MB’s, but if it will still be compatible and not have a relatively dramatic effect on my performance than I will stick with my 768MB PC2100/PC2700 hybrid and sell the extra 256MB.)

Also, has anyone noticed the way the RAM access door on the S series also gives full access to the wireless card…   great for A/B/G upgrading :wink:

I wouldn’t recommend it. If they work together at all, you’re going to effectively underclock your memory to the slowest one you have installed. It will probably act a bit flakey in any case.

Speaking of underclocked… or rather contrary… how exactly do people overclock their components?  Like I know it means pushing the hardware beyond it’s limits… but how do people do it? 

Most of the better build-it-yourself motherboards and high-end graphics cards have overclocking provisions. Where processors are concerned, if Intel sells you 3.0Ghz P4 it’s not going to die at 3.1Ghz and may run happily at 3.3Ghz. Conventional wisdom has it that “slower” chips in the same series often could have been rated higher had the demand been there. Important, too, to use quality memory and other components. Proper overclocking also requires good power supplies and extra cooling.

Most of the better build-it-yourself motherboards and high-end graphics cards have overclocking provisions. Where processors are concerned, if Intel sells you 3.0Ghz P4 it’s not going to die at 3.1Ghz and may run happily at 3.3Ghz. Conventional wisdom has it that “slower” chips in the same series often could have been rated higher had the demand been there. Important, too, to use quality memory and other components. Proper overclocking also requires good power supplies and extra cooling.

Overclocking provisions?  Meaning an extra set of ‘swtches’ on the motherboard, such as for reseting BIOS etc?  Or would it be firmware/software based?  Exactly how do you go about overclocking?  Anyway someone could give an example of a semi-highend gaming system that is ‘being’ overclocked?

I think the newer motherboards provide overclocking facilities through the BIOS utility now. The older ones probably used jumpers ( :?: ).

[quote author=“OnMyWayUp”]
Overclocking provisions?  Meaning an extra set of ‘swtches’ on the motherboard, such as for reseting BIOS etc?  Or would it be firmware/software based?  Exactly how do you go about overclocking?  Anyway someone could give an example of a semi-highend gaming system that is ‘being’ overclocked?

System Bios, adjustments to processor and buss speeds, refresh rate, ad nauseum. The power graphic cards come with software to diddle with the onboard settings. Then you start worrying about interrupt conficts and priorities. Along the way you turn off every unnecessary service and device. See, there is a good use for that Hardware Profile in System, Hardware. Besides gaming, video guys like speed. Rendering video into MPEG on even a fast machine can take hours. You can google away on the subject.

Here’s a good place to start: http://www.tomshardware.com/

good ol’ jumper days… i remember when i pushed a 100mhz fsb all the way up to 150mhz.  The CPU can take quite a bit.  My old p3-600mhz was running at 900mhz.  The only part that I had to replace was the network card which wouldn’t run properly at 150*0.33=50mhz 8)

It was such a nice performance jump…  man! that even reminds me of GLIDE.  I wish they could still be around.  They had one of the best made video cards. sad marketting was their own demise :(

Considering how fast the hardware is nowadays and how they’re already plagued with cooling issues I dare say that overclocking is pretty overrated.

That said, if you just want to do it for curiosity or bragging rights then you can say…take a 3.4Ghz CPU past 4Ghz with the right combination of FSB overclocking, CPU modifier changing, etc. A lot of it is now software based depending on what kind of hardware brands you’re using. Some are much more friendly than others for doing this kind of stuff.

It used to be a little less expensive to overclock as well as you’d only need to buy a new heatsink/fan combo. Nowadays, to see appreciable gains you’ll have to spend a lot of money on exotic cooling systems and setups. Of course, with all the money you’re dumping into overclocking your CPU you could have bought the next speed grade (or couple of speed grades) up to begin with and saved yourself a lot of time and money.

Jumpers. I have mixed emotions. It was nice, if you knew what you needed, to lock down an irq, dma channel, address, in the hardware and just ttell the OS/programs what to use. ‘built a loaded 486 with lots of drives, adapters & ports…spent a week juggling IRQs and mapping IO. A few years later my son, who was going to school and working for Tandy as a tech, decided to try plonking Win95 on it. Surprised the h*ll out of him, clean install and he said it was faster than some of the PIs he was working on.

Until my last go-around I’ve been too busy/lazy to worry about custom stuff. PnP is nice but it sure comes up with some lousy IRQ pairings.

now i’m lazy as hell.  i could care less about custom built computers.  If i was still in the gaming world, it woudl be worth, but now that I have full time grad school, I like reliability, portability and beauty… did i mention TR?  :mrgreen:

[quote author=“gr00vy0ne”]Considering how fast the hardware is nowadays and how they’re already plagued with cooling issues I dare say that overclocking is pretty overrated.

That said, if you just want to do it for curiosity or bragging rights then you can say…take a 3.4Ghz CPU past 4Ghz with the right combination of FSB overclocking, CPU modifier changing, etc. A lot of it is now software based depending on what kind of hardware brands you’re using. Some are much more friendly than others for doing this kind of stuff.

It used to be a little less expensive to overclock as well as you’d only need to buy a new heatsink/fan combo. Nowadays, to see appreciable gains you’ll have to spend a lot of money on exotic cooling systems and setups. Of course, with all the money you’re dumping into overclocking your CPU you could have bought the next speed grade (or couple of speed grades) up to begin with and saved yourself a lot of time and money.

I totally agree, it’s the computer nerd equivilent of the guy who has to take his engine apart and have everything custom milled and generally rearrange everything but the windsheild.

Only way it makes the slightest sense to me is if you have the fastest avaiilable chip and for some reason a boost would give you some kind of edge. I’m not into gaming so I have no idea at what speed the law of diminishing returns would kick in.

I built my last box simply because I could save a buck or two and have exactly what I wanted. One thing about putting it together yourself is that there are no secrets, you know what’s in there. Did overrate the powersupply and go with additional cooling but that was mainly because it has seven drives

Oh, to answer the original question. You could conceivably put the slower PC2100 memory into the Type S but Drachen is right. It will effectively “slow down” the faster memory as all the memory will need to run at the lowest common denominator. I don’t know if it’s worth it.

You can purchase the Type S 512MB memory module directly from Kingston for around $165 which is better than Sony’s price and you get Kingston’s great warranty on it. You can also get a 10% discount right now and free shipping if you use the promo code “save”.

This knocks the 512MB module to $148.50 and the 256MB module to $83.70. That’s not too bad considering this a pretty new part.

Did the Kingston speedboost promotion end?

I think the promotion is still there on selected items. I tried it on the this newer memory and it didn’t work. Still the 10% savings and the free shipping are decent deals.

Yes they are. Shoulda known you’d checked. :oops: