My grandma just gave me her computer she had built back in 99 and at the time it was top of the line and cost her $3000. Well I'm wanting to upgrade it from 128 MB to something higher up. And the gateway site says it has to be in increments of 128 meg.. with a max of 384MB. Here's what the Gateway stie says the computer has on it:

Cables
Modem Line Cable R1 [Part #8003295]
SND WW PNP AUDIO CBLSND WW PNP AUDIO CBL [Part #8001092]
Cases and Case Hardware
Flat Side Mini Tower Chassis Rev 9 [Part #3500581]
STK LBL PIII Box R0 [Part #9001436]
STK LBL PIII CASE R0 [Part #9001435]
CD-ROM, CD-RW or CR-RW Drives - Find Upgrades
Philips 4X/4X/24X CD-R/RW Rev. 1 [Part #5501240]
DVD Drives or Decoder Cards - Find Upgrades
Hitachi 8x/32x DVD-ROM Drive [Part #5501222]
Floppy Drives
Panasonic 1.44-MB Floppy Disk Drive Revision 3 [Part #5500962]
Hard Drives - Find Upgrades
Quantum 27.3-GB Ultra ATA/66 IDE Hard Disk Drive [Part #5501113]
Jaz and Zip Drives
Iomega Atapi 3.5-inch Zip Drive Revision 2 [Part #5500946]
Keyboards
KBD NPG US 104+ R4 [Part #7001024]
Memory -
128-MB 100Mhz SDRAM DIMM [Part #5000441]
Mice
Microsoft IntelliPoint Mouse Revision 4 [Part #7001466]
Microphones
Gateway Condenser Microphone [Part #7000981]
Microsoft Software -
Microsoft Windows 98 2nd Edition [Part #7506000]
Office 2000 Small Business Edition [Part #7506545]
Modems
U.S. Robotics 56K Voice WinModem R1 (Fullerton) [Part #6001126]
Monitors
EV910 19-inch Monitor With 18.0-inch Viewable Area Rev. 0 [Part #7001267]
Motherboards
Intel (Tabor3) BX Motherboard R1 [Part #4000510]
Power Supplies
200-Watt 3.3-Volt LP Power Supply with 700ma Revision 7 [Part #6500400]
Processors
Intel 600 MHz SECC2 Slot 1 Pentium III (Katmai) CPUSAC [Part #2507016]
Software -
Gateway Technical Support [Part #7506949]
Sound Cards
Sound Blaster Live! Value Sound Card [Part #6001128]
Speakers
Boston Acoustics BA735 Powered Sub/Satellite Speaker System [Part #7001332]
System Restoration CD
System Restoration CD 10.3 [Part #7507201]
Video Cards
32 MB TNT-2 R0 Video Card [Part #6001099]
STB PCI TV Tuner Card Rev. 0 [Part #6000704]
Other
3 Connection Hercules IDE Interface Cable [Part #8002545]
Consumer Bezel for Mini-Tower [Part #8001940]
Floppy Drive Cable [Part #8001854]
Hard Drive Ribbon Cable for a Mini Tower [Part #8001184]
Modem to Sound Card Audio Cable [Part #8001173]
Support Mounting Bracket for Mini Towers Rev. 3 [Part #8003821]
SurgeArrest SurgeStation Professional [Part #6500314]
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YUCK!

Condense that down into understandable levels, please...

Processor=?
RAM is how big?
Hardrive is how big?
CDR/CDRW/DVD/DVR?

The rest is superficial...

 

Looks like a P-III 600 w/ 128 mb ram, 30 gig HD, CD R/W, DVD, etc. If you want to upgrade just the RAM, just buy another 128 mb stick of SDRAM. Slap it in, and you're home free.

Was there another question in there somewhere? It seems like a capable machine, depending on what you want to do with it.

 

As cloleson said, add the 128 mb of RAM and you should have a nice machine (depending on what you want to do with it.)
From what you wrote, you should be able to add 256 mb and max out the board.

(Open the case. You should see two empty memory slots, IF the board actually will take the 384 mb that you listed,)

RAM is like a table. The more RAM you have, basically, the bigger the table.
You can have more stuff 'opened up' on a bigger table, than on a little one.

Example . . this pc that I'm on right now, has 1 gb of DDR RAM. My laptop. . . 1gb of DDR.

I've seen SDRAM for as little as $29.00 for 128mb, last week.

 

Sounds like you got a darn good computer for word processing, web surfing and of course FTE. You can go ahead and add another stick of 128 sdram in it but I wouldnt get the ram total over 256. A computer of that time frame should have windows 98. Windows 98 is not designed to really take advantage of anything higher than 256. I have an old computer that has a little slower processor than yours but 256mb of ram and it will do anything I want it to short of gaming.

 

A P3-600 will run Windows XP if it has enough memory, say, the full 384mb. I've loaded it on some other systems about that age and generally they do all right. Or, like several others said, you can bump it to 256 and stick with Win98. Either way it sounds like a decent system.

 

Exactly what the others are saying. WinXP will work onit fine. I have it on three laptops each with a 333 mhz processor and on a desktop with a 500 mhz pentium.

The rest of the stuff on it seems ok, not top of the line anymore, but ok. its got a cd burner, dvd player and a tv tuner card. Video card is a little outdated, but could be upgraded if desired.

 

I had a 98 Gateway. Maxed out the memory to 384mb and upgraded to XP Pro. Worked great. The best place to buy memory crucial.com. All you have to do is enter the computer model number and it will tell you everything. Price is good too. Maybe a couple bucks higher than some places, but crucial's memory is guaranteed accurate and compatible.
Scott
83 F150 Reg cab 302 2v AOD R.I.P.
88 Bronco XLT 302 AOD 205k miles & counting
99 F150 4.2L 5sp 194k miles & counting

"I would walk and carry a Ford hubcap before I would drive a dodge. This is Ford country, on a quiet night you can hear a chevy rust."

 

Well I could either stick in a 256 or two 128's.. I think the one 256 would be enough. I know a little bit about computers and RAM.. I built a comuter not too long ago.. I just didn't know if I could slap in like a 512MB stick or not. I found out I could, but only 384MB would be used of it.

This was free to me, so I'm gonna add a few little things to it. My other computer's not anything really fancy.. AMD Athlon XP, 1 gig of RAM, DVD-burner, DVD-ROM drive, 256MB GDDR3 xFX video card, 160GB hard drive, running WinXP.. sometimes I put in the PHLAK CD and boot up into Linux though. It gets the job done. Right now I'm on my laptop that has 512MB RAM, DVD-RW drive, WinXP, 17" viewable screen..

 

you need memory? pm me and I'll send you a couple sticks in the mail. I just ripped down about 100 computers with my friend and we gutted the stuff of SD RAM. I've got sticks upon sticks of 128MB PC 133 or PC100 RAM.

Ryan

 

Romer, go ahead and overclock that cpu to get a little more speed .

 

See if the Gateway website has specs for what the motherboard can handle - there should be a downloadable manual that covers everything.

Somewhere on the motherboard itself you should find a model designation - that could be key to how far you can go with it.


~Wolf

PS: BOSTON ACOUSTICS is one of the PRIME PC speaker outfits, by the way.
Cambridge being another, and Altec Lansing.

 

I know the Boston Acoustics are like #1 in my books as far as computer speakers. Those things get loud and still are super clear.. but extremely heavy! I think 384 is about as big as I can go.. on this computer. I've heard a lot about overclocking.. how do you do this? I've known people to do it with their video cards, and also their memory.

FghtinIrshNvrDie - A PM is going your way as soon as I hit post quick reply.

 

I've read up on overclocking.. but it's not making a whole lotta sence. Anybody know more about it.. like in layman's terms?