Adding RAM

Last week, I added some Random Access Memory (RAM) to my PC.

The prices have halved in just one month to RM 130.00* for a Kingston ValueRAM 256 MB PC133!

Maybe it's a slow month for computer parts but I am glad I didn't buy it last month when I was so close to doing that.

Installing it was easy and was as simple as just plonking the extra piece into the empty DIMM slot.

Upon booting up, the bios reported the correct amount of RAM on my machine which is now a whopping 320 MB!

I cannot describe correctly what this means to the performance of my PC now that it has all this RAM to play around in. Everything just seems to swoosh by and I can notice that the HDD is also a lot quieter these days.

Now I can truly say that my PC is running at optimum levels. Previously, with just 64 MB RAM, it was like having fixed tyres 3 sizes smaller for a brand new Mercedes Benz...

Even so, running a casual Diagnostics Test using Norton Utilities today, it reported this error:

Testing memory using pattern with all bits cleared...
Error detected at address 289685504
Test: Failed

Fearing that I had bought a dud, I repeated the tests and found similar results despite re-booting and re-testing the memory as suggested by the Help file in Norton Diagnostics.

Also suggested in the Help file, was for me to try removing the SDRAM and cleaning the contact points; I did that - and still, ERROR!

Almost planning out what I was going to say to the guys I had bought this RAM from, I tried testing just the one piece of RAM and removing the old 64MB piece.

Guess what? All the tests returned NO ERRORS! Strange, I thought - there's nothing wrong with the NEW RAM at all. So, I removed it and placed the old 64 MB RAM and ran the tests - again, NO ERRORS!

So, I am certain that both, the old and the new RAM on my PC are good but Norton Diagnostics keeps reporting errors when both are run together - weird!

Anyway, for a while there I was confused until someone explained it to me on the GID Forums™ that there's nothing wrong with my RAMs, just something wrong with Norton diagnostics!!!

* US$ 34.00