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Can I use DDR400 Ram with a PC133 board?

I

imported_g33k

Senior member
I work as a high school computer science teacher. The labs at the school have PIII Coppermine 800mhz computers. We upgraded to Windows XP from Windows 2000 last year. The computers are equipped with 128mb of PC133 RAM. I would like to upgrade them with another 128mb.

Oddly enough DDR400 Ram is now priced lower than PC133, otherwise I would not be asking this question. I have heard that RAM is backward compatible, will it work in my case?
 
Originally posted by: g33k
I work as a high school computer science teacher. The labs at the school have PIII Coppermine 800mhz computers. We upgraded to Windows XP from Windows 2000 last year. The computers are equipped with 128mb of PC133 RAM. I would like to upgrade them with another 128mb.

Oddly enough DDR400 Ram is now priced lower than PC133, otherwise I would not be asking this question. I have heard that RAM is backward compatible, will it work in my case?
Click to expand...

SDR is backward compatable with slower SDR, DDR is backwards compatable with slower DDR, but you can't mix the two. They wont physically fit in the different slots, sorry 🙁
 
Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Originally posted by: g33k
I work as a high school computer science teacher. The labs at the school have PIII Coppermine 800mhz computers. We upgraded to Windows XP from Windows 2000 last year. The computers are equipped with 128mb of PC133 RAM. I would like to upgrade them with another 128mb.

Oddly enough DDR400 Ram is now priced lower than PC133, otherwise I would not be asking this question. I have heard that RAM is backward compatible, will it work in my case?
Click to expand...

SDR is backward compatable with slower SDR, DDR is backwards compatable with slower DDR, but you can't mix the two. They wont physically fit in the different slots, sorry 🙁
Click to expand...



Yep

SDRAM = 168 pin
DDR = 184 pin
 
The reason that DDR memory is cheaper than the older SDR memory is because of the demand. SD ram is not used much, hence they charge more for keeping it around and making it available
 
Rofl, well computer software/programming != computer hardware 😛 My dad's a great programmer but doesn't know crap about hardware. What's strange is I have pretty much the exact same system as this guy with an 800Mhz Coppermine, 128MB PC133 RAM, and Windows 2000 😵 (I'm not using it now of course...)
 
Check www.Crucial.com for memory that is guaranteed to work. Some newer double-sided/high density memory does not show up properly on old motherboards.

Suggestion: If the motherboards accept 256 MB memory sticks and you don't want to give each machine 384 MB, it may be cheaper to buy 1 - 256 MB stick for every _2_ computers. For each pair (A,B), replace the memory stick in compuer A with the 256 stick, place A's 128 MB stick in computer B.
 
I teach Keyboarding, Word, Excel and some Web design. I do know hardware. I built my rig in sig. However, I don't know much about this older tech. Yes we are little behind the times, but we don't play Doom 3 or CS:S. 😛 We just use them for basic office type apps. Windows XP requires more RAM than 2000 that is why I asked.

We are not what they call a "digital high school". In fact, half the computers the students use are PIII's, and the other half are even older PII's. Our server is ancient it takes the students about 5 minutes to log in! Our network admin says the server equipment is obsolete. So I'm thinking new infrastructure before new computers, if in fact he is telling the truth and its not his incompetence.

And DaveSimmons thanks for your suggestion. I have ~100 computers in two labs so I'll get 50x256MB DIMMS.
 
what you describe is fine for what you are teaching. None of it requires much power and as you say you are not playing Doom 3 or CS:S. Like I said though, you should have stuck with 2000. XP is just not worth it at all. I only just upgraded to XP but only for 64bit. If I didn't have the option of 64bit OS I would still be using 2K.

Anyway, you might be able to get some sort of discount since you are buying such a large quantity and represent a school. I would email some places and see if they will knock the price down.
 
Brutal. Actually, 512MB does make a *major* difference even in office work. Considering that at school, I usually have around 3-15 different office files open at the same time while doing research, 128MB or 256MB won't cut it.
Also, it takes around 10 minutes for my personal webpage to load. 🙁

Kudos for the school to offer a web-page creating class which has a connection and computers which can't load it.
 
Originally posted by: Phonicc
Originally posted by: g33k
I work as a high school computer science teacher.
Click to expand...

Nobody else finds this disturbing?


Edit: Don't get me wrong, no offence to OP intended.
Click to expand...

Nope, that was the first thing I noticed too. If this guy became a HS computer "science" teacher. I bet I could too.

We upgraded to Windows XP from Windows 2000 last year.
Click to expand...
Why?
 
Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
SDR is backward compatable with slower SDR, DDR is backwards compatable with slower DDR, but you can't mix the two. They wont physically fit in the different slots, sorry 🙁
Click to expand...

Careful what you say - the full term of the new ram is "DDR SDRAM"
 
yeah but the fact that it is called DDR SDRAM is probably what would lead somebody to think it is compatible with SDRAM. So as to not confuse the two most people just call it DDR
 
Originally posted by: dragonballgtz
Originally posted by: Phonicc
Originally posted by: g33k
I work as a high school computer science teacher.
Click to expand...

Nobody else finds this disturbing?


Edit: Don't get me wrong, no offence to OP intended.
Click to expand...

Nope, that was the first thing I noticed too. If this guy became a HS computer "science" teacher. I bet I could too.
Click to expand...

If you are curious, to become a HS teacher, one needs an undergraduate degree and another 1-1.5 years in graduate classes for the credential. In the state of California, to teach computers requires a business degree/credential, since mostly everything being taught are business apps. So, most of the technical aspects are not handled by educators, rather they are handled by our network administrator. However, I lost faith in our network admin and I have decided to do this upgrade myself. Thanks to forums like these, most of the information is online.

quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We upgraded to Windows XP from Windows 2000 last year.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Why?


Our network admin convinced the dept chair to do this upgrade. In retrospect, it seems like a bad decision. Our computers run even slower now and the added security features of XP were not required.
 
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