Memory Lapse

About a week or so ago I was idly browsing the web when I was suddenly struck by the thought that I should buy some more memory for my desktop computer. I must have been thinking it would speed it up, or let me run Viewer 2.0 properly or something. Anyway, I surfed over to eBay to look for some of the DIMMS that my elderly box needs. Readers may recall that the last time I tried this I went to the auction site after having a few drinks, and ended up buying the wrong kind, so I was careful to only bid on PC133 modules, and managed to pick up 1GB for what seemed like the bargain price of £8, including delivery.

The chips arrived in the post today, so this evening I set to work installing them, which was a lot more bother than I remembered. The memory slots are partially blocked by the video card and obscured by the hard drive cables, so I had to take the machine half to pieces to get the modules in. Once everything was back together I switched the power on, but of course all I got was the triple beep of the BIOS “Your memory is screwed” signal.

Some online research soon revealed that there there is a subtle but crucial difference between the PC133r memory I had purchased and the PC133u memory that my machine was expecting. After a further bout of dismantling and rebuilding I had my old configuration back working again.

I guess I’m only down a few pounds and a couple of hours, and I have learned something, albeit only some almost completely useless knowledge about the inner workings of a long-obsolete computer, which will probably crowd something more valuable out of my brain. The lesson I’m drawing from this is that change is to be feared, and I should just be happy with what I’ve got.