Dell GX1 RAM headache, need help

[Polishwonder74]

Ok, you'd think that throwing more memory in would be easy, right? An open and shut case?

Ugh, There must be something that I'm not thinking of here because this is the 2nd time I've had trouble packing in more RAM in a GX1. There are 2 flavors of GX1's, and both that I've got are of the 350Mhz - 600Mhz variety. I think they both use identical motherboards, but maybe not. I probably wouldn't be having this problem if I just bought Dell RAM for like $150 per 128 stick. . .

So this is what I've got going on: I looked on the specs page to figure out what kind of RAM to go for, and I also checked with Crucial.com. Instead of ordering from there, I scored a couple 256 sticks from ebay for about half the price, tried them and they didn't work. bummer. So what I went for was:
256MB 133Mhz CL3 ECC Registered RAM, and it totally didn't work. I can't even POST with it installed. The specs at Dell.com don't mention a preference between unbuffered/registered, do you think that's my problem? Please help, this is driving me up the wall, and I've got to order different memory, and I don't wanna screw this up AGAIN.

btw, anyone wanna buy a few 256 sticks of RAM?

 

[Polishwonder74]

P.S.

Here's what I get from Crucial's webpage

 

[junglevip]

I had a Dell system for a while and couldn't get any RAM to work in it... except the RAM Dell sell on their website.... Hmmm conspiracy anyone?

 

[mechBgon]

The board can use ECC modules, but not Registered ECC modules. Registered = poison, you want non-registered, aka unbuffered Also, at the age that they are, you want low-density memory IC's. If you want to be sure the RAM will work, order some PC100 from Crucial using their configurator. We have one Optiplex GX1 at my workplace and it came with ECC modules, but you can mix & match, or I can, anyway Adding non-ECC will disable ECC system-wide, but that's not a big deal.

Bigger picture: these systems are DOG slow. Sure it's worth putting $60-$120 into them?

 

[Polishwonder74]

Yeah, I got away with about half price for the system. I'm up to about $150 on it total. It costs me about $480 to put together a reasonably high-quality, stable system (Antec case & power supply, NForce2 mobo, silent fans, WD hard drive, etc). I'm cobbing this one together for my Aunt who needs to get her feet wet (e-mail, web surfing, excel, etc) and doesn't want to blow $700 on a new computer. Hopefully she'll go ahead and do that once she finds out how useful they are. So I figured I'd grab a cheap Dell from ebay since they tend to use top shelf parts, load it right up to the gills with RAM, install XP on it and give it to her to learn on. I know it's pretty slow by today's standards, but it's relatively cheap and built out of relatively high quality crap.

Ok, so I guess it turns out I've got to hunt down some non-registered ECC. Is that sort of thing common knowledge and I'm just an idiot, or was Dell kind of screwing me by not putting that on their spec sheet?

 

[mechBgon]

It's sort of common knowledge, Registered has its place mainly in servers or workstations where the ability to use one zillion memory modules with complete stability is necessary. I think you could find someone to trade with in For Sale & Trade if you have some time to wait for the right person. What you want is what we would call "low-density" PC100 or PC133, stuff that'll work with a 440BX chipset.