is it possible to install too much ram? my computer is about three years old now, and i'm finding my daily application routine to be even more sluggish that usual. my biggest problem is internet explorer pausing every couple minutes for about thirty seconds. so i need more memory, right? i want to expand my current 96mb to a hefty 512mb if at all possible. pc133 ram is pretty cheap even at that many megabytes, so i'm looking forward to the upgrade. before i pick it up though, i'd like to be put at ease of a worry i've picked up on what seems to be the last minute here. can i over-load my computer with ram? is there a maximum amount my computer can handle? how would i know? please help me asap. thanx.

3 year old comp, i would be certain to 100% that it couldnt support a single 512 chip, or even possible wont support a 256mb single dimm.

If you're going to run Win98, 512 is the MAXIMUM. Check your motheboard documentation for more detailed information on what size DIMMs your machine can suport.

Yes, you can overload it with RAM (unless you create a RAM drive). Seems a machine as old as yours could benefit from the upgrade but it's like throwing in a 454 motor in a Mini. Upgrade to a minimum of 256 if possible, anything over that for your machine is a waste. Hopefully you'll see a big difference. Clyde

Here's a useful link that can help you sort out how much/what type RAM is compatible with your MOBO. http://www.crucial.com/index.asp

I agree with the above posts. More than 512MB on Win 98 can actually slow the performance. 256MB will probably be the point that you will stop noticing a difference. If the slowing has been gradual, there is probably another problem (although increasing the RAM could help, you already have more than required to run Win 98 with decent speed). Do you clean out the temporary internet files? Do you defragment your computer? Is Windows computing your virtual memory settings for you or have you set your own? Setting the min and max settings to the same number, approximately 2.5x your ram can speed things up a little. Is your harddrive becoming too full? A little housekeeping may speed things up. Some other things you could do would be to disable any antivirus from monitoring full time and just do weekly scans or enable it when you bring in email, disable as many startup programs as you can, don't run a system monitoring program such as Norton System works. Disable firewalls when not connected to the internet. Clean out temporary files, run scan disk and defrag monthly. You may already be doing these things, but sometimes it helps to go back to basics.

LESSDANGEROUS, Last Monday (10th) My sister ask me to look at her computer as it was running very very slow. I installed Spider Ware and Ad-Aware to take a look at her system.There were 357 files, adult web sites, porn sites, etc, that were competing for her computer. I had to run Ad-Aware three times to get it all off. Spider removed all the index.dat and other temp files, urls, etc, with no problem. Her system was running like new after all the junk was removed. She's a single working mother and her 16 year old son had been very busy on the web while she was working. Good Luck