1 Gig of RAM

The package arrived just moments ago.

I took Mom's Dell upstairs. It's the first time since we got the system that I've had to open the case. Up to now, I didn't even know how to open it.

It's got a Pentium 4 with the processor fan setup like the rescued P4 tower upstairs.

It's got PATA aka IDE drive interfaces. I don't know what's causing the CDrom to act wonky at times, so perhaps that will have to be just outright replaced. I checked all the cables.

Carefully vacuumed out dust on the processor heat sink. Then removed the Samsung 256MB stick and gingerly installed the Kingston set. I bought a PC2700 DDR 333 pair meant for dual channel use, but it'll work as a single channel 1 Gig set up as well.

Got it downstairs and hooked it up carefully. Turned it on, thing beeped at me saying the amount of system RAM has changed. Damn straight. F1 to continue.

Oh my god. I wish mom could have seen this. The Dell booted up in around 1 minute. It was so sweet to see it do that. Imagine the amount of time we could have saved if this had been bought sooner.

1 minute. All icons except for the printer showed up. I mean it just leaped to life.

Right now will be a "burn in" test. It may be on for a few hours to make sure it's going to work out, but this is a Kingston product. Same brand as the dual channel set I put in that one lady's system.

It was so sweet. 1 minute boot up time. XP sees 1 Gig in there.

EDIT: Actually, the boot up time is about 2min 39sec. Much faster than the 4 minutes that became the norm after AVG Free became bloatware.