Assorted computer stuff

[dudejediknight]

Somebody a couple blocks away from me put out a huge pile of computer stuff, with a sign that says everything works, but is old. The towers I looked through all had Windows 2000 stickers on them. All of the machines I checked were devoid of hard drives, but still had CD and floppy drives. I always expect people to be dumb enough to leave their hard drives inside, but it seems they've yet to prove me right. If I didn't already have a pile of PC towers and monitors to mess with, I would have taken some. However, I did manage to plunder some assorted bits I've been needing.

The grand total was 2 USB cords, 12 sticks of PC 133 RAM (a mix of 128 and 256MB), and a couple 2032 button cell batteries. The RAM all seem to work just fine. My beloved Blue&White recognized them all, though as unknown vendor and speed. It reported the appropriate size for all but 2 of them; two of the 256MB sticks were recognized as only 128MB. I have yet to give them a more long-term usage test, but for now, being recognized is good enough. As for the sticks that weren't recognized as the correct size, I have yet to look into why that is, but it's not really that big of a deal at this moment.

All in all, I was disappointed in what I couldn't (but was hoping to) find, while also being satisfied with the things I did find. Not a super haul, but not too bad overall.

UPDATE: [:O] ]'>

Well, this is really odd. Those 256MB sticks that my B&W wouldn't see as the right size... well, the family's iMac DV sees them as the 256MB sticks that they are. Go figure. Looks like it's going to get a snazzy upgrade from dual 128s to dual 256s for free! At least I'll get the old 128s in the trade-off.

 

[quinterro]

Those two 256MB sticks may have been high density DIMMs. Older PC systems only recognize half of them too.

 

[dudejediknight]

Those two 256MB sticks may have been high density DIMMs. Older PC systems only recognize half of them too.

The G3 B&W and the DV iMac are from about the same time... why would one recognize it properly, but not the other? Just to be safe, I'm holding on to the RAM I took out of the iMac, just in case those 256mb modules ends up causing problems later on.

When I was hunting for parts, I basically got to the point where I was just grabbing RAM before the rain started up again. It's not really that big of a deal that my tower didn't like them... it's just that I found it to be odd. Sorta ruins my chance to max out my B&W with 4x256MB like I had hoped, but for free, I think i can deal with it. Having 3x256MB + 1x128MB is still a lot better than what I had in it before. I'm just glad that those RAM modules worked properly in something we have here right now.