more memory will help. there are 4 common flavors these days. their is DDR and DDR2. then each comes in "laptop" and "desktop", although a few desk tops use laptop(the new macs). criterion will tell you what minimum speed you need. 400mhz was mentioned by someone. faster is acceptable. sometimes the faster chips are cheaper??? particularly when they are on sale. i have not had trouble with any off brands, and do cram in a lot of chips for friends.
I presume you can mix and match size and speed, since you have 3 slots. If unsure of what to get, i think circuit city and best buy are the best places, as they will accept returns, even on memory chips. just keep everything. there is also staples and office depot. among the 4, at least one will usually have super cheap chips available. staples will not put them on the floor. ask the manager for the chips. the prices on the web sites do NOT match the sunday brochure prices. even with the same part number sometimes. CC usually ships free for over $50 purchase. so does staples. CC seems to be having a chip sale today. $30 for a 1gig ofjust about everything. chips are easy to install, if you cannot do it, ask your daughter. all you need is a screw driver to take the screws off the back of the case, and a flashlite to see the guts of the machine. if you live in an area with a CC, pull the chip and go down there for an exact match. just remember faster is ok. jer At 09:48 PM 3/4/2008, you wrote: >In a recent post on this listserv, I asked about increasing memory on an old >computer that my high school daughter was using. That computer was: > >>Dell Optiplex GX240 >>1700 MHz. Pentium 4; 3/256 KB memory cache >>Bus 100 MHz. >The consensus was that the computer was too old to try to upgrade memory. > >Now, my middle-aged daughter gave her old computer to my youngest daughter to >replace the older Dell computer. This computer was built locally at my >specification about 4 years ago. The info on this computer is (obtained from >BelArc Advisor): > >Win XP Pro SP2 >2.15 GHz. AMD Athlon XP processor >ASUSTeK A7N8X-E Rev. 2.xx motherboard >Bus 166 Mhz. > >The computer has 512 MB DIMM memory in one slot, two additional slots free. > >(1) Is it advisable to add memory to speed up this computer? > >(2) Where is a good place to buy cheap memory? Most memory places ask for >brand name to select memory, but I have only motherboard info. Is this info >sufficient? > >(3) The motherboard on bootup displays first a BIOS-like menu, followed by a >graphic display with a female voice saying that something like all systems are >checked and found to be working. The graphic splash display includes a >mention that the motherboard works at 400 MHz. This contradicts the >information from BelArc Advisor that the bus is 166 MHz. Is there something >set wrong in the BIOS? > > >************************************************************************* >** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** >** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** >************************************************************************* ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
