Older compaq and ram

[Corsairpro]

My brother has an older compaq w/ a p2 233 and 60mb of ram... he needs 64 for dsl and i don't know if his mobo uses pc66 or pc100... any ideas how to tell what kind of ram he has?

Thanks,
David

 

[Lord Evermore]

Pull the module out of his computer and see if it's marked.

Get the model number of the machine and look it up on Compaq's support site.

I'd presume it's 66MHz memory, since that's the speed of the P2/233 bus and Intel took forever to increase it.

PC100 can run at 66MHz too, however the BIOS of the computer may prevent it. A lot of older proprietary boards will only work if they detect the exact type of memory that the manufacturer specified, and won't work even with better memory that technically could work. It certainly wouldn't hurt the system to find a spare PC100 module and stick it in the machine, as long as it's got the same notches for the slot.

 

[MasterHoss]

I had an old P2 266MHz Compaq back in the day. They definately use "PC66" SDRAM. True, most mobo's will allow for PC100 DIMMs but the older Compaq mobos will not. You'll have to get a hold of true PC66 SDRAM for that Compaq.

 

[owensdj]

If you know the model of that Compaq, you should be able to look up the type of memory it uses at Crucial Technology.