How do I tell what type of memory chips to purchase???

[emmylaw]

I have a crappy old Gazelle computer model GZA-300. It has 32 megs of RAM and is running out of memory. I need hlp finding out what typ of DIMMs or SIMMs my computer needs and am technologically deficient. Where do I find out this information and how can I tell if a particular chip is compatible?
Any replies will be helpful.

[JacobM5727]

i have sisoft sandra and it says what kind of ram your motherboard is compatible with, thats the only way i know... or you could probably look and see whats in there now

[Bovon]

Yes, Sandra will tell you what you have now. Get a free evaluation copy here:
http://www.sisoftware.demon.co.uk/sandra/

If your machine is older than maybe 5 years. I suspect it is EDO ram, probably 72 pin SIMM. They are hard to find now, and probably the best way is to see if somebody has some used stuff in the traders part of any forum. One more thing. Many of these older computers will not allow too much ram to be installed. This is controlled by the motherboard chipset. If you can determine what mainboard is in that computer, find out what the chipset is, you can then find out what the max amount of ram can be installed. Sometimes, you can plug in say...128 mb into a system that will only handle 64 mb, and it will crash on you, and gove you blue screens a lot.

Sandra will also tell you the name of the mainboard, the chipset and bios info, as well as the version...good starting place. It will also tell you what brand, make and speed of the ram now installed.