Hi. I just added Kingston 256Ram to a PC100 Compaq system for a friend. Memory was supposedly for pc100/pc133 use. The Pc previously had 64 ram and is upgradable to 512. When I put the memory in, there was a loud noise when Windows came up and a message 'Severe Memory Error' appeared. However, Windows ontinued and seemed to boot fine. ControlPanel/System registers 319RAM. I assume this means it recognized the memory, but it says 319 instead of 320 (256+64). System seems faster but I'm not sure if I can trust it. Any feedback on why it would say 319 instead of 320? Does the fact that I am seeing the RAM mean that my PC recognizes is and accepts it? Thanks.

Thats normal ,my system has 256M.B. installed and my system reports it as 255M.B. Someone explained the reason for this ,however I cant remember ,sorry ! I dont own a compaq ,however I have read that they can be picky about what brand of RAM is used ? Now the "loud noise" would concern me ,have you looked in device manager for any yellow exclamation marks, or red x's ? Isolating the exact point where this loud noise came from would be very telling as to what piece of harware has a problem. Good Luck Nick