Hi all; A friend of mine has purchased a refurbished IBM NetVista PC. He'd like to add some RAM to it. I know a lot of PC manufacturers have gone away from proprietary hardware in the last few years. Is IBM one of them? I was previously told that HP and Packard Bell PC had to have HP and Packard Bell hardware. However, I've changed hardware in both with generic hardware with no problems. Will my friend be able to add generic RAM to his IBM NetVista? Harry

In over 20 years working on PCs I have never heard of any RAM being proprietary. I suggest you go somewhere reliable to look up the memory spec and then buy memory matching those specifications. One place I like is www.crucial.com. You can drill down to the exact model and get the specs there, buy from crucial, or get it someplace else with the same specs.

I second haroldw. RAMs are never considered "proprietary." i_XpUser

Harry I agree with haroldw with the caviat. The big box manufacturers do build systems that somtimes don't like memory with different specs than what they configured. For instance using PC133 in a box requiring PC100 may result in no post. Theorically that RAM should work. The best method is what haroldw recommended. Crucial.com guarantees thier RECOMMENDED memory to work. I believe Kingston also has a similiar site.