Um, not to hijack my own thread or anything, but–I’m supposed to take an old “Memory stick” out and put the new one in? I’m trying to add RAM, to make an addition to what’s already there, so we can play Sims Unleashed at something faster than Slow Glacier. The computer as is has 63 MB of RAM available 'cause it’s got one of those El Cheapo E-Machines video thingies that needs to share the RAM, so I wanna add this 128 MB of RAM that I just bought. The game manual recommends 128 MB of RAM for best game play, and I hear other Sims addicts saying that “the more RAM, the better the game plays”, so if I take out the 64 and put in the 128, I’m still just barely even. I was hoping for a little more than “just barely even”.
It says “KVR–PC133/128 Memory Upgrade Module” on it.
So I’ve got this website here http://computermemoryupgrade.mysuperpc.com/ that says I’m supposed to plug this thingie in, in an empty slot or something, not pull something old out and put the new thingie in. Or am I missing something?
If you’ve got an open memory slot, you normally just plug the new stick in the empty slot and leave the old stick in place.
A lot of the machines I upgrade are “fully populated” memory-wise, meaning they don’t have an empty slot. So I may pull out a 64 meg stick and put in a 128, or pull a 128 and put in a 256, etc.
Also, some motherboards will support faster memory than they currently have installed. For instance, if you currently had 64 meg of PC-100 ram, and your motherboard supported PC-133, I’d chuck the 64 meg stick and run on a single 256 meg stick rated at PC-133, because if you mix them, the lower speed gets used.
And I have seen rare cases where one brand of memory just doesn’t seem to like another brand, and the box doesn’t boot or doesn’t run properly with the mix.
But those are probably the exceptions, not the rule. In your case, I’d just plug in the new stick, leave the old one in place, and try it. Chances are you’ll be fine.
Very good and bad answers above. I am required by FAA requirement to be certified for ESDS (Electro-static Sensitive DeviceS)
The purpose of the grounding strap is to protect you, not the equipment. The equipment can be replaced, you can’t. A good static discharge strap uses a resistor between 750K to 1 megohm. This is designed to isolate you from an electical ground. Wrist straps should be checked prior to every use. I use 2 or 3 a week and I wear them in an area set up to be ESDS safe. Where most folks work on there own computers are probably much worse.
Wearing a wrist strap is fine except hooking it up to the piece of equipment you are working on. If the case of your computer is not grounded, hooking the strap to it does absolutely nothing. Anyone that knows anything about electricity knows you need a complete circuit for something to work. The idea for using the grounding prong of you household outlet is not such a bad idea. I plug the banana plug end of my wrist strap into the ground hole of an electrical outlet when I work on computers. The plumbing in you abode also makes a good ground. Also, shoes with natural rubber soles can generate quite a bit of static electricity. Leather or hard rubber soled shoes are better. Wear natural fiber clothing too. I have seen folks wearing polar fleece fabrics that are popular today generate over 300 volts. If this thread is still alive Monday, I will share some of the specifications for ESDS that Boeing uses with everyone.
I think you mean that the purpose of the resistor in the ground strap is to protect you. The ground strap itself is to protect the equipment.
Sometimes the equipment can’t be replaced either. I know of a satellite project where a tiny flaw was detected on a CCD chip just before final integration. They played it safe and replaced the chip, even though was a huge amount of work to reassemble, re-align and test the instrument afterwards. It turns out that the chip was damaged by static discharge, and that the fault would have developed to a point where it made the whole satellite almost useless. Yes they took every precaution to guard against ESD, but accidents do happen.
Okay. Thank you, everybody for the advice. The Better Half is supposed to have Monday off, and he sez he’s going to tackle this himself. He added RAM to our other computer, once, the one with Windows 95 on it, upgrading it from 16 MB to 32 MB–yes, children, computers used to be that anemic–so if I see him sitting here with a screwdriver in his hand and a gleam in his eye come Monday morning, is there anything in particular I should say to him?
