Not Compatible

[earl colby pottinger]

Money

I've done network technician work before, I've installed both wireless and hard wired home networks before a number of times. I used to work in an IT capacity installing and maintaining an ethernet network. At the time the incident happened, I could recite the ethernet specification from memory. I know exactly what the differences between Cat5 and Cat5e cable are. But the clerk (and his immediate manager) simply didn't care. I couldn't buy the "wrong" cable because it was their Duty to make sure I bought the right one. It almost goes without saying the "right" cable they were pushing cost four times what my selection cost. I very nearly got thrown out of the store for my insistence that I knew what I was doing and did not want a Cat5e cable.

Pricing/Money is always a telling point, when they are trying to sell you something that is cheaper than you are looking at it really means they are trying to help you or they have lots of old stock they are trying to get rid of.

When it is something a lot more expense, they usually just want to get as much of your money as possible.

If I am unsure that a cheap something may not work, I always ask if I can return it to trade upwards, never been refused yet.

[Eric the Grey]

Sort of. The ram is listed in 3 factors:

The casing: SIMM, DIMM, SoDIMM, MicroDIMM, etc.

Don't forget Rambus (or RD Ram) that Dell likes to put in their desktops. It only costs 4-5 times as much (or at least used to)

My Dell came with those, and when I was pricing the difference in building an entire new machine and adding 512 megs of Rambus to my Dell, it turned out to be only a couple hundred more to build a completely new machine.

Of course, I went way beyond that original figure...



Eric the Grey

[lordlundar]

Don't forget Rambus (or RD Ram) that Dell likes to put in their desktops.

Ugh! don't get me started on Rambus. I'd rather be ignorant on that piece of crap.

For those of you wondering it is only as fast as DDR, Requires termination (no empty slots so you need to buy a termination card as well) and the price is through the roof. So in short you are paying a lot more for an inferior product.

[BlackIronCrown]

Recently, my wally world started offering cheap RAM. 1gig for 80 bucks. Maybe it's overpaying, but I thought it couldn't hurt to pick up a stick. Besides, it was cheaper than most I'd seen, so what harm in it?

Oh Repsac, no!
Please not to be buying RAM from Wally World! I promise promise PROMISE you, you can get good 1GB stick ram for no more than 25-35 dollars from newegg.com or tigerdirect.com. That's just a hit on the wallet you don't need, man!

[JustADude]

Oh Repsac, no!
Please not to be buying RAM from Wally World! I promise promise PROMISE you, you can get good 1GB stick ram for no more than 25-35 dollars from newegg.com or tigerdirect.com. That's just a hit on the wallet you don't need, man!

A 1-gig stick of RAM better climb out of the case and my for $80!

Seriously, though, the only 1-gig sticks that should cost that much are DDR3 or smoking-fast DDR2 memory.

[Skrae]

it has to be upgraded in pairs [2 sticks]

I could swear that's not always true, I know people who use a 256 with and 512, and I've used computers with only one stick of RAM in. I could be wrong, maybe your hardware requires it, I dunno, I just know I've seen computers with two different sizes and just one stick of RAM.

[Binadal]

I could swear that's not always true, I know people who use a 256 with and 512, and I've used computers with only one stick of RAM in. I could be wrong, maybe your hardware requires it, I dunno, I just know I've seen computers with two different sizes and just one stick of RAM.

DDR, DDR2, DDR3 doesn't need to be installed in pairs, but you'll lose dual channel capability if it's not (1-2% performance hit at the most)

[lordlundar]

DDR, DDR2, DDR3 doesn't need to be installed in pairs, but you'll lose dual channel capability if it's not (1-2% performance hit at the most)

Yes, whereas DRAM and Rambus need to be upgraded in pairs or have a termination card in place. SDRAM I'm pretty sure I managed to single update, but not sure.

[Birdysurfin]

Recently, my wally world started offering cheap RAM. 1gig for 80 bucks. Maybe it's overpaying, but I thought it couldn't hurt to pick up a stick. Besides, it was cheaper than most I'd seen, so what harm in it?

Check out the website <4allmemory.com>
They bench test all their RAM
All you have to do is input the make & model of your machine and the site will tell
you what will work. And they guarantee it.
Their prices are pretty good too.

[Depot Denizen]

I have an old Dimension 8200 that has 256 MB of RAMBUS. God, what a peice of crap. You know what else sucked? I tried using the processor in another mobo...and Dell had Intel design that processor so you could only use it with RAMBUS! I switched to AMD for a time after that.

DDR2 is so cheap now, though...I still have 2 GB of dual-channel stuff from last year that I bought for $300 from NewEgg, and THAT was a steal at the time.