RAM Heaven: Where My Old RAM Goes

[Jason Dunn]

<p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1247427562.usr1.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></p><p>I've been mucking about with one of my computers this weekend, performing a couple of upgrades to it (details on Monday) and since one of those upgrades was a RAM upgrade, I retired the old RAM. I have a small plastic container that I use to store the old RAM, but I've never organized it into any logical fashion so if I need something I have to squint at tiny labels to figure it all out. Today I took a few minutes and sorted and labelled the RAM groups I have. It's quite funny to see all that RAM together in one place, ranging from the lowly 256 MB PC133 RAM up to the more modern 1 GB PC6400 chips. It's amazing how cheap RAM has become as well - yesterday I picked up 2 x 2 GB sticks of PC26400 RAM for $64.99 CAD. 4 GB of RAM for $65...it's amazing how things have changed. I don't tend to keep too many old part lying around, but RAM is so small it's easy to keep a collection for the occasion when you run across an old computer that could use a boost.&nbsp;What do you do with your old RAM or old PC parts?</p>

[Joel Crane]

I label my extra ram with masking tape and put it in my box of PC parts. Right now I only have extra PC100 64mb modules, I never have had enough 128mb and 256mb modules to go around between all my older (But still useful) machines.

[Janak Parekh]

Great post!

I do memory upgrades much less now than when I actively built machines, but in general, the memory usually got tossed in a box somewhere. I suspect lots are sitting in my parents' basement.

Anyone remember the 16Kb (that is kilobit, not kilobyte) chips used in the original IBM PC? You'd install 9 chips (not SIMMs, not DIMMs, chips!) to get 16KB (16Kb * 8 + 1 parity chip). There were 36 sockets for a total of 64KB. Those were the days, and man, was it annoying. Chips lasted way longer than they should have. It was by far the worst part of assembling a PC, installing those 36 chips to get anywhere from 64KB to 1MB of RAM. Bent pins, oh the pain... :(

--janak

[Jason Dunn]

Anyone remember the 16Kb (that is kilobit, not kilobyte) chips used in the original IBM PC?

Haha...wow. I've worked on some old computers in my life, but I've never worked on a machine that old. I think when that computer was out, I was still an Apple guy. An Apple clone guy that is. :D

[Darius Wey]

What do you do with your old RAM or old PC parts

As I discovered recently, I place them in a box, waiting to be discovered years later. :D

http://twitter.com/dariuswey/status/2516897578

[The Yaz]

My spare computer parts do not hang around for very long in my home. When I make an upgrade (or retire a whole machine) I bring the parts to my kid's school. Their equipment can always use more memory, spare cd drives, power supplies, etc.

I've even purchased daughter boards to get enough slots to make the smaller memory useful. On one of the school's computers I've got 16 slots filled with 64mb chips! (I had to install an extra fan to cool the box ;)).

Its probably cheaper to just get fresh ram in t first place, but definetly not as muh fun!

Steve :cool:

[Jason Dunn]

I've even purchased daughter boards to get enough slots to make the smaller memory useful. On one of the school's computers I've got 16 slots filled with 64mb chips! (I had to install an extra fan to cool the box ;)).

Hehe...sweet. That's so geeky, it's cool. :D

[Reid Kistler]

Recycle as much as possible - and RAM seems to "always" be in demand, so have only a handful of chips around at any given time - although also with a fair number of "suspect" ones.

And buying older ram chips is Expensive. Am upping wife's machine from 1GB to 2GB, partially due to loading Win7 on it, and partially because one of the existing (512MB No-Name) chips appears to be failing: PC3200 RAM is mostly in the $70 - $90 range for 2 x 1GB chips! (Or roughly twice as much as the earlier mentioned PC26400 chips....:eek: )

Greater problem now is OLD HARD DRIVES: have a number of drives in the 4-12GB range which appear to be essentially USELESS. To say nothing of the half-dozen or so that are UNDER 1GB (and mostly under 500MB....).

In fact, am in the process of removing files from a 20GB HD that is mounted in an Ext Case: the drive is simply too small to be viable as a Back-Up anymore...:( .... although am hoping it will find life as a second drive Somewhere.

[Jason Dunn]

Greater problem now is OLD HARD DRIVES: have a number of drives in the 4-12GB range which appear to be essentially USELESS. To say nothing of the half-dozen or so that are UNDER 1GB (and mostly under 500MB....).

I know what you mean - I'm staring at SIX hard drives on my desk that I have ZERO use for. Of course, the smallest one is 400 GB. :D

[Reid Kistler]

Quote:
I'm staring at SIX hard drives on my desk that I have ZERO use for. Of course, the smallest one is 400 GB. :D

The SMALLEST?!?!?!

We have Precisely ONE HD that EXCEEDS 400GB - and that is a 750GB External Back-up!

In fact, think we have only ONE MACHINE with over 400GB installed internally - don't think wife's Quite Makes it to 400, from memory, and nothing else would be even close. Feeling altogether downtrodden & poverty stricken now... :)

(Hmmm: that I have ZERO use for... May be time for a Give Away??? :D)

[Jason Dunn]

(Hmmm: that I have ZERO use for... May be time for a Give Away??? :D)

Haha...you know, I was thinking the same thing myself. Stay tuned! I'm not sure if I'll give them ALL away, but I'm sure I can part with a few...:D

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Why would a 400gb drive be useless to you?

[Joel Crane]

The largest hard drive I own is 80GB. I consider anything bigger than a 6GB useful, in fact I'm a couple good hard drives short right now. 6 gigs is enough to hold Windows XP or a light version of Linux (Such as the Ubuntu-based CrunchBang).

IDE hard drives and 128mb or bigger PC100-133 RAM modules are two things I can never seem to have enough of.

You may ask what old machines with this kind of hardware is useful for, but I can think of a number of things. A slower, older compact Celeron 600mhz in the kitchen can most certainly Remote Desktop into your desktop computer, a 266mhz PII running Linux in the garage can browse for motorcycle parts and how-tos, and another Celeron 1ghz can be a light duty HTPC or file server.

I'm not joking either. These three computers really exist and are used in my house.

If it has a 600mhz processor, has more than 5gb of hard drive space, and has 256mb of RAM, it can run Windows XP smoothly and is totally, completely useful.

[Jason Dunn]

Why would a 400gb drive be useless to you?

Because I already have bigger and/or faster hard drives in every computer that needs them. At some point when you've upgraded here and there, you have things that are left over...

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Heh, I thought you'd just stick them in the machines and leave them there. I still have a 320gb in my current rig with two other 1gb drives.

[Jason Dunn]

Heh, I thought you'd just stick them in the machines and leave them there. I still have a 320gb in my current rig with two other 1gb drives.

I tend not to add hard drives for the sake of adding hard drives...hard drives use power, make noise, and generate heat. I just took out a 500 GB and 400 GB hard drive from one computer and replaced it with a 1 TB drive to get more performance, less noise, and less heat. Ideally I want to run with as few hard drives in each computer as I can. I have 4 TB of storage in my WHS, so that's plenty of centralized storage.

As for the 1 GB drives, I haven't had those for a long time. :D

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

D'oh. How silly of me. :D

[Jason Dunn]

Heads up everyone: I'm giving away seven hard drives, 3.3 TB in total, starting on the 20th of this month. I'll be giving away a hard drive each week. The seven drives range from 750 GB to 300 GB in size. Watch the front page on the 20th for the contest to start! :D

[Reid Kistler]

Heads up everyone: I'm giving away seven hard drives, 3.3 TB in total, starting on the 20th of this month. I'll be giving away a hard drive each week. The seven drives range from 750 GB to 300 GB in size. Watch the front page on the 20th for the contest to start! :D


Hurrah! Just be certain not to ship out a little bundle-of-joy in error!! :eek: