i have a computer RAM question

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Haynie

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May 20, 2011
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Page Arizona
I need a place with reasonable RAM prices. I need 3 1 gig cards and I have seen prices that range from 39 dollars to over 200 dollars per gig.

Any suggestions.
 
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+1 on tiger direct. I got most of the parts for my custom gaming computer from there.

Levi Woodard
Sent from my DROID RAZR using Forum Runner
 
Tiger Direct is good. So is Fry's Electronics

Fry's Home Electronics | Computer Parts & Accessories, Software, Games, TVs, Cameras - Frys.com

Do you know exactly what your computer takes? If not, log on to www.crucial.com and run their diagnostic program. It will look at your system and tell you what is currently in it, what kind if memory it takes, how many slots are open, and what the maximum memory the motherboard can take. Their memory is excellent, but pricey, but you can take the info and buy the memory wherever you want.

Sharon
 
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Got the blue screen of death so need to replace the HD as well. This is an old computer I am getting it back together for my son who wants to run KODU.

It can take a max of 3 gigs
PC133/SDRAM.

The things we do for our kids. It will still be cheaper than buying new.

Is refurbished RAM a good idea?
 
Blue screen of death is usually not the hard drive. First and most likely, is a corrupted operating system. Could also be the be the CPU or memory.

Does the computer POST? (will it go through it's preliminary screens and start to load Windows). When do you get the BSOD?

There are some things you can try.

Try taking out all the RAM chips but one. Turn it on. If it POSTs and loads Windows, you know that chip is good. If not, take it out and put one of the other chips in. If it works, you know the first chip was bad and it is probably a memory problem. If it won't load with any one of the memory chips, it is probably not a memory problem, because usually all the chips won't go bad at the same time.

Does the computer run a checkdisk clean? Usually when it won't boot properly, when you turn it on it comes up with a screen that tells you it is checking the hard drive. Let that program run and see if it gives you errors. If it doesn't, you can take the hard drive out and put it on a cable in another computer as a "d" drive and look at it to see if it is good. See if you can open the directories and look at the files. If checkdisk didn't find any errors, and you can open the directories and look at the files, it probably means that Windows has become corrupted. Try reformatting the drive and reloading the operating system.

If the drive is OK and the memory tests OK, and it still won't work with a fresh OS, it is the CPU that has gone south.
 
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BSOD said it did not recognize the new hard drive. I never put a new hard drive in it. Ran perfect one day. Dead the next. I did a set up on it to get the particulars. Ran a drive test and it did not say it was bad. I am thinking it is the OS.

This is an old as dirt Compaq Evo running windows 2000. My plan was to up the RAM, replace the HD with one that was bigger, and install windows 7. The only thing this computer will be doing is running KODU and maybe minecraft.

Am I wasting my time?
 
Haynie said:
This is an old as dirt Compaq Evo running windows 2000. My plan was to up the RAM, replace the HD with one that was bigger, and install windows 7. The only thing this computer will be doing is running KODU and maybe minecraft.

Am I wasting my time?
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I'd say 'yes'. Win7 isn't exactly a simple OS under the hood, even with some of the fun stuff turned off (like aero glass). For the aount of money you will spend on a new HD, RAM, and Win7, you're pretty much right at the point of a new computer. When a new Dell with 4 Gigs of RAM and a 500GB HD come in at <$300, it seems silly to try and "upgrade" a Compaq running a 12-13 year old Pentium 4.
 
Where are you seeing dells for less than 300? I decided to upgrade this one because everything I was finding was over that amount.

I will go hunt some more. Thanks.
 
Another option is Dell has an "outlet" section that you can actually break down by new vs. refurb vs. scratch&dent: Dell Factory Outlet

Be warned: Inventory on the best deals does not last long but additional items get added repeatedly throughout the day.
 
Great advice from all above. I've used the all the places named at one point or another.
One point I might add is that you can get a good deal on a refurb- my laptop is one. It's a toshiba, so it has gone through an even more rigorous inspection than the first time it was issued.

Also, I know of one guy who bought several cheap new-ish laptops from a pawn store. Just f-disk and start over from scratch...
 
You ABSOLUTELY can't put Win 7 on that system. There are no Win 7 drivers for systems that old. It couldn't even talk to the motherboard

I just bought and installed one of the Dell 660 series systems for a neighbor and it is a great little machine, running Win7.

Sharon
 
sbwertz said:
You ABSOLUTELY can't put Win 7 on that system. There are no Win 7 drivers for systems that old. It couldn't even talk to the motherboard
Click to expand...
Neglecting the fact that Win7 would probably complain about being installed on such a weak system, the generic drivers would be more than adequate for talking to everything on the system.
 
Think RAM is expensive? I remember when I had to add RAM 1 MEG at a time and pay $40 per MEG (1 MEG stick). Computer only held 4 MEG. Also remember that 1 GIG = 1000 MEG, do the math!!

Jeff in northern Wisconsin
 
Ok more confused than I was.

Here is the situation

My oldest son (11) has become enamoured with KODU. He played with it for a little bit, talked me into buying a KODU manual and the little booger won't put it down. I figure if he is willing to dedicate that much effort to it I should support it. KODU only runs on a PC.

We have plenty of MAC computing power but I do not want to run boot camp. Just my personal preference.

This computer will be for KODU, and maybe some games.
 
I buy all my hardware from newegg.com have since they opened. You can find deals on amazon.com as well. Tiger direct is good, the only reason I have not purchased from them is I have to pay tax on it. As someone else said though not really worth putting any new hardware on a system that old.
 
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@Haynie: Good for him! As a programmer of 30+ years professionally (damn, when did I get so old?!), I love to hear about young folks getting into anything like Kosu that teaches programming basics such as logic constructs. There's a similar project that's big with the RaspberryPi called Scratch ( if anyone's interested you can play @ Scratch - Imagine, Program, Share ) though if he's hooked on Kodu he probably wouldn't be happy with Scratch. It does run on a lot less hardware.

Wish I had an extra old PC to send him...
 
alphageek said:
Haynie said:
Thanks folks.

This is a great forum. No money spent.
Click to expand...

Gee... I'm guessing someone had either some old ram or other old hardware laying around! :)

Good for you...

And I agree - good for another young person to be interesting in programming.
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No old RAM sitting around, just got enough people telling me I was wasting my time with an old as dirt computer. It did not cost me anything since I asked before I bought.

I thought about asking the same question on a computer board. After attempting to read some of their responses to similar questions I realized they were speaking a different language. I got what I needed here in plain old, non abbreviated, no acronym, English.
 
ttpenman said:
Think RAM is expensive? I remember when I had to add RAM 1 MEG at a time and pay $40 per MEG (1 MEG stick).
Click to expand...

I bought 4 1M SIMMS for $50 ea. two days before the earthquake in Kobe, Japan. (where most of the RAM was coming from)
Overnight, Egghead Software (they used to have stores) doubled the price to $100/M where it stayed for a long time. They wouldn't exchange the two bad SIMMS they had sold me, but they would buy them back at $50 and sell me new ones at $100. I had a 486DX50, so I had to get 4 SIMMS together. That was the last time I dealt with Egghead.
Found another dealer who not only was cheaper, ($82/M) he even bought it back when I was ready to upgrade to (gasp!) 4M SIMMS for $365 ea,! Almost $1500 for 16M of memory.

And.. he bought those back a year later for $350 ea. when I upgraded my system again.

Now, you couldn't give those things away
 
Dan Hintz said:
sbwertz said:
You ABSOLUTELY can't put Win 7 on that system. There are no Win 7 drivers for systems that old. It couldn't even talk to the motherboard
Click to expand...
Neglecting the fact that Win7 would probably complain about being installed on such a weak system, the generic drivers would be more than adequate for talking to everything on the system.
Click to expand...

UMMMM....Good luck with that. I spent almost a week trying to get Win7 up and running on a system that was only 8 years old. I finally got it to run, but not well. I had to use a usb wireless card off a router because I could never get the onboard ethernet card to work without Win 7 drivers. Same with the drivers for the onboard card reader. (I've had my own computer consulting business for 35 years, so I'm not exactly a beginner at this.) Admittedly, this was an eMachine, which is now defunct, so no real support available, but even so, I was only able to find about half the necessary drivers. I wound up restoring it back to UGH!!! Vista! (I couldn't find XP drivers for it either.) All in all a wasted, frustrating week.
 
In 1986 I bought my first "power system". It was a 80386 based CAD system with 3 megabytes of static RAM, an 8 millisecond caching disk controller and two 40 mb ESDI drives. I paid $7800 (That would be $16,644.53 in today's dollars.)for it and half that cost was the static RAM. But it was the fastest thing available (just marginally faster than the much touted new Compaq Deskpro 386 that had just come out. I will admit, that it was still running and still fast when the 486's were in their heyday. I eventually put a SCSI controller in it and a SCSI CDROM. I finally retired it in 2000 after 14 years of faithful service.
 
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sbwertz said:
Dan Hintz said:
sbwertz said:
You ABSOLUTELY can't put Win 7 on that system. There are no Win 7 drivers for systems that old. It couldn't even talk to the motherboard
Click to expand...
Neglecting the fact that Win7 would probably complain about being installed on such a weak system, the generic drivers would be more than adequate for talking to everything on the system.
Click to expand...

UMMMM....Good luck with that. I spent almost a week trying to get Win7 up and running on a system that was only 8 years old. I finally got it to run, but not well. I had to use a usb wireless card off a router because I could never get the onboard ethernet card to work without Win 7 drivers. Same with the drivers for the onboard card reader. (I've had my own computer consulting business for 35 years, so I'm not exactly a beginner at this.) Admittedly, this was an eMachine, which is now defunct, so no real support available, but even so, I was only able to find about half the necessary drivers. I wound up restoring it back to UGH!!! Vista! (I couldn't find XP drivers for it either.) All in all a wasted, frustrating week.
Click to expand...
Yea....I tried to get a Vista computer to play with an XP and it wouldn't work Fortunately I had specified XP when I ordered the computer so the took Vista off and put XP on --- had a little problem when I updated the other computer with Windows 7 installed but just a minor one because all we had to do was get the wireless to connect to the internet.
 
sbwertz said:
In 1986 I bought my first "power system". It was a 80386 based CAD system with 3 megabytes of static RAM, an 8 millisecond caching disk controller and two 40 mb ESDI drives.
Click to expand...
Sounds a lot like my first system... a 386SX with a 40meg drive. started with 2 Megs of RAM, upgraded to 4 and a '387 coprocessor a few months later so I could run AutoCAD.
 
Dan Hintz said:
sbwertz said:
In 1986 I bought my first "power system". It was a 80386 based CAD system with 3 megabytes of static RAM, an 8 millisecond caching disk controller and two 40 mb ESDI drives.
Click to expand...
Sounds a lot like my first system... a 386SX with a 40meg drive. started with 2 Megs of RAM, upgraded to 4 and a '387 coprocessor a few months later so I could run AutoCAD.
Click to expand...
In February 1981 I took delivery of my first -- IBM PC with 8088 processor, 64k memory, 2 160 KB Floppy discs, 13 inch mono monitor, PSDOS, amd BASICA. We eventually upgraded to 384KB memory and converted a 19 inch TV into a color monitor. We also had a printer....Wound up being a $3500 toy but my 2nd son learned to program on it and that skill got him to an executive position with Red Roof Inns and set the stage for him being the Chief Operating Officer of a 30 motel chain by the time he was 28 -- and he never finished college.
 
Dan Hintz said:
sbwertz said:
In 1986 I bought my first "power system". It was a 80386 based CAD system with 3 megabytes of static RAM, an 8 millisecond caching disk controller and two 40 mb ESDI drives.
Click to expand...
Sounds a lot like my first system... a 386SX with a 40meg drive. started with 2 Megs of RAM, upgraded to 4 and a '387 coprocessor a few months later so I could run AutoCAD.
Click to expand...

Yes, this system was designed to run AuotCad. The static memory was much faster than standard memory, and the caching controller made hard disk access almost as fast as an SSD drive today. The ESDI drives were also fast. I was the envy of all my co-workers LOL. I wasn't doing CAD on it though. I was doing graphics programming back when computer graphics was in its infancy. It took a lot of horsepower.
 
I learned to program on a timeshared GE mainframe with a teletype terminal out in the laundry room (too noisy to have in the house.) Then we got an Atari 600 and later an 800. Then our first REAL computer was a total of four Kaypro CP/M portable systems running on Z80 chips. My first DOS system was a Kaypro 8088 passive backplane system (motherboard on a card that plugged into the backplane and could be upgraded by just plugging in a new card.) In 1985 I built my first system based on AMD's first 286 chip. It had an EGA color video card and monitor! (The 8088 had CGA 16 colors.) I lose track after that. Too many systems in too many years.
 
My favorite place to get computer memory was always RAM Memory Upgrade: Dell, Mac, Apple, HP, Compaq. USB drives, SSD at Crucial.com

Their site allows you to look up what you need by make and model of the computer or make/model of the motherboard if you build them yourself. Usually they give you multiple speeds and price ranges to choose from and the price was always reasonable.

I said "was" a couple times there because it's been a few years since I've built my own or had need to upgrade what I had. So I'm assuming they're still as good as what I experienced in the past. The website still exists and seems to have the same look-up functionality, but I just haven't purchased any lately to have a feel for price comparison.
 
Usually build my own systems as well although the last couple I have purchased from one of those sites that use a configuration thereby allowing me to specify most of the components. In using them I typically will max out or nearly so memory for my specified MB and therefore have not had occasion to add additional memory. I would have to go back to PC133 ram(early last decade) to find anything I have bought extra so can't really help but if I were to buy I would most likely go to Tiger D. first.

My first PC was a TI(Texas Instruments)99-4A, Anyone remember the Bill Cosby ads? Did a little basic programing on it and like it(as a pastime) so well that I upgraded to a TI-Pro. It was an MS-Dos machine running at 5mhz(vs IBM's 4.5) and had near VGA graphics out of the gate. It came with two 160meg floppies, 64megs of memory upgradable to 764(vs IBM's 640). I later upgraded it to 128megs, a math coprocessor and a 10meg HD(really flying high with that, lol). I also purchased Lotus 123, Ashton Tates Dbase, the Multimate word-processor. The whole package was well over $3600 if memory serves me right. It served me very well up to about 1991 or so(didn't really keep records) when I upgraded to a 486 machine. However, I keep the TI around and it still ran fine in the late 90's when I finally sold it in a yard-sale in 99. Incidental the store that sold me the Ti-Pro was giving away a TI-99-4A with the purchase so I ended up with 3 PCs that year. I gave the 99's to family members as gifts.
 
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JD Combs Sr said:
My first PC was a TI(Texas Instruments)99-4A, Anyone remember the Bill Cosby ads? Did a little basic programing on it and like it(as a pastime) so well that I upgraded to a TI-Pro. It was an MS-Dos machine running at 5mhz(vs IBM's 4.5) and had near VGA graphics out of the gate. It came with two 160meg floppies, 64megs of memory upgradable to 764
Click to expand...

Uh, don't you mean 64 kb memory, not 64 mb? The first GE mainframe my husband worked on had 4k memory!
 
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