RAM advice needed

[hander]

I have an old Dell 2500 Inspiron with 256MB ram which I use and abuse around the house or on holiday.

I'd like to add another 256 if possible but according to crucial this is some £88!

Don't think the laptop is worth that!

Specs are:

256MB—CT208309
SDRAM, PC100
CL=2
Non-parity

Is there anything else I can count on reliably to work (bearing in mind there is already 256MB of the above spec ram in there).

Thanks in advance!

[LeChris]

Lovely SD-RAM...new brand memory is expensive, i know.

You need a double-sided stick, PC100 or PC133. CL2 timing at PC100 recommended. Make sure it has so called 32x8 or 32Mx8(=2 banks) structure, a 64Mx4-type does not work with Intel chipsets. Non-ECC(=parity) and unbuffered/non-registered.

Some kind of brand is also recommended: Kingston, Infineon etc...

You may try to get some 2nd hand stick first. If unsure, get/let show you a SPD.txt from CPU-Z(About>Memory SPD).

Price should be around 15.

Module #3

General
Memory type SDRAM
Manufacturer (ID) Hyundai Electronics (ADFFFFFFFFFFFFFF)
Size 512 MBytes
Max bandwidth PC133 (133 MHz)
Part number 7V63801BTFG-75

Attributes
Number of banks 1
Data width 64 bits
Correction None
Registered no
Buffered no

Timings table
Frequency (MHz) 100 133
CAS# 2.0 3.0
RAS# to CAS# delay 2 3
RAS# Precharge 2 3
TRAS# 5 6

While size is 256MB, your module needs to have 2 banks!