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[jough]

You should be able to get SDRAM PC100 128MB chips for around $25-30.

Try here:

nevermind

EDIT:
Hmm... I bought some of these about a year ago for around $21.  Now it appears they're about twice that much, if not a little more.

Has memory increased in price lately?  Very odd.  I'll see if I can find a deal for you.  

You could check http://newegg.com for cheap non-OEM parts.

[slink]

Has memory increased in price lately?  Very odd.  I'll see if I can find a deal for you.  

No. But old memory has.
The middle aged stuff is cheaper than it has been for about a year, but to buy either brand new top of the line stuff (a pc4200 paired 512 set costs a fuck*ng bomb) or say some sdram, is fairly costly.

Also, re strange noises if it's at all grindy, it's probably either the CPU fan or the PSU fan. Try and get a paintbrush and hoik all the dust out of the fans, and get the as clean as possible.
I have terrible problems with dust in here (probably from my smoking, so it may stop now) and my fans would start grinding as the dust clogged them up.
Had to replace two CPU fans and 1 GPU fan due to this. And really should have replaced my old PSU for it too.

[CortJstr]

Really? I shut down yesterday for the first time since the hurricane (I reboot regularly, but rarely shut down) and something sounded like and old tractor when it was spinning down.

When I had the cover off yesterday I couldn't even find the damned fan to see if it was clogged. The HD seemed to be positioned near where the sound was coming from but I'm not sure.

[Carlos del Vaca]

I buy memory here:  http://www.crucial.com/

[CortJstr]

Also, re strange noises if it's at all grindy, it's probably either the CPU fan or the PSU fan. Try and get a paintbrush and hoik all the dust out of the fans, and get the as clean as possible.

Okay, CPU fan I understand, although I'm not sure where it would be since the heat sink takes up all kinds of space. But what's PSU? Power Supply Unit?

[jough]

If the hard drive was making a grinding sound, it likely wouldn't work at all.  Usually a HD makes a high pitched squeaking sound when it's dying.

And Crucial.com is way over-priced, but they will have every kind of memory in stock at any given time.  I'd consider them a "last resort."

[CortJstr]

Yeah, I thought that too I was just preparing myself for worst-case. I googled and found several message threads like this where the person actually replaced the HD before finding out it was just the fan. I'm borrowing a duster spray from work to work on things tonight.

I guess I should've done a better cleaning job last year. My video card died because the fan clogged and stopped spinning so it overheated. Luckily it was under warranty so I got a newer card with a heat sink for free.

Maybe I should invest in one of those tiny vacuums. I'm sure my case and keyboard could both use some sweeping out.

Edit: For the RAM I might just go with Best Buy. They have it for $40 and my parents are apparently getting me a BB gift card to buy my new HD so I could combine this in there.

I might even just get one chip. I've got one free slot so this'll cut down on cost and won't leave me with a useless 64MB chip laying around.

[jough]

What OS are you running?

Windows ME, 98, 95, etc. can get by just fine on 128mb.  For Windows 2000 or XP, though, you'll need at least 256mb, if not 512mb (for XP, mostly).

It sounds like you're running an older computer, so even just getting two 128mb chips will make a noticable difference.

[CortJstr]

I'm running 98SE (which gets retired next month). I have 192 now which has been pretty good to me. But between ZoneAlarm and Norton and distributed.net it gets constant use. I just recently installed ZA (when I got cable) and while it wasn't a huge hit to my performance I'd like to get things running more smoothly. Especially for ripping CDs and games.

So one more 128 should help a lot, and it would only leave me 64MB under my system maximum.

[jough]

Okay, well, $40 isn't too much to spend for better performance.

I have 512mb in my laptop but some of that is shared with video memory.  I got a 128mb video memory expansion card with it, but it still wasn't really fast enough for, um, graphics applications.

So instead of sharing the usual 64mb I found that I could increase it in the bios to 128mb.  So now I have 256mb of video memory and 384mb of main memory, which is plenty.

I had to drop back down to the old McAfee version, though, since the new version 8.0 would delete my entire mail spool file if it found ONE virus attachment.  Losing mail is a good reason to never ever every use a product again.  The 7.0 version is a real memory hog compared to the new version, but if it's going to be destructive (and I noticed that there are few configuration options in the new version compared to the older one) I can't use it.

They're sending me an RMA to return it, but I was considering wrapping the software with a pair of bricks and "returning" the software to the McAfee offices personally the next time I'm out West.

And the McAfee support fairy said it was a problem with Eudora.  I asked if I was using Outlook would it delete my entire PST file because it found one virus in a message and she said she didn't believe so.

So I e-mailed myself the EICAR test virus. Guess what?  Version 8.0 deleted the entire .pst file, which is the single file in which Outlook stores all mail, settings, contacts, addressses, and attachments.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

[CortJstr]

It's definitely my HD. Fuck.

I dusted everythingthing out and turned it on with the wall off. The fan is humming smoothly and the HD is whining. When I shutdown it takes a long time to spin down. It's always been on the loud side but this sounds unusual to me. Plus it kind of flutters now and then. That can't be good.

I'm really worried as I'm the worst backer-upper ever. I'm keeping it off as much as possible until I get a new drive.

Advice?

How do I even switch over to a whole new drive? Do I have to start with my recovery disk and reinstall everything from scratch? I've never done anything like this.

[jough]

I rebuild my system about twice a year.

If you can, you should install the OS fresh on the new hard drive, and then attach the old one as a slave (there's a jumper setting, which will likely be marked on the drive somewhere - it's usually the last pins on the right).

Yes, you'll have to re-install your applications.  But you can copy a lot over to the new drive once you have them both hooked up.

[CortJstr]

I dunno what's going on. Last night I actually removed the whole rack holding the drive to dust out the parts I couldn't reach before and tightened everything down and now it sounds fine. But that might just be wishful thinking.

I don't think I'll be able to relax until I get a new drive and at least copy over my irreplacable files. If the old drive goes after that then I'll worry about installing/rebuilding on the new drive.

I dunno, I hate dealing with this crap.

[slink]

Not pleasant, but good to do. Nothing like a fully operational machine.
Having just reinstalled windows I know from recent experience whereof I speak.

And yes, PSU is Power Supply Unit - the little box in the back that has a fan on the back and possibly even on the inside. Some being two fan units.

[CortJstr]

Ugh. I'm still not done. For whatever reason I can't get anything to see both drives. I take that back, they know the other drive is present but can't read any data off of it. So I installed XP on the new drive and I'm shuttling data from the old one via an intermediary computer on my network. Joy!