I recently put a stick of PC133 in a board that only supports PC100 and it worked fine...(or was it the other way around...)

It's not the ram that's the problem....it's the motherboard. I would update that (it's certainly cheaper) before I updated anything else...

Yep, I third the agreement. But, it will turn out to be a more expensive proposition too. I just did it myself. $380 for pentium 4 motherboard and 3 Ghtz processor. That was a good price. The problem was that my power supply,case and memory weren't compatible. Dumb Gateway led me to believe that they were compatible. Also, I just found out that Windows 98 won't run with 1GB memory, 512 MB is the maximum. So, until I figure out a way around that problem its bye-bye win98.

New motherboard`s definitely an option but that's a whole other can of worms. On that track, I would then think about new motherboard versus whole new machine. RAM sticks versus motherboard versus new machine really depends alot on TacoMan's comfort/knowledge level with each alternative.

Options and options !

My MB is 12/99, 100MHz frontside but I`ve milked it along and milked it along. I'm not a gamer, so I may milk it along another couple of years. With the RAM at 640 MB versus 768 max and the P3 CPU upgraded from 500 MHz to 1 GHz it does pretty decently on amateur photos and graphics which are the heaviest demands I put on it (while servering the other 2 machines on my home LAN).

Chas...there are work-arounds for running 98 'efficiently' in 'too much' ram....

ChasUGC - you should have went with what I am going with. AMD 2600+ (2 Ghz) CPU and a MSI mobo ran me less than $135 dollars.

The motherboard!!! Isn't that all of my ports AND the CPU AND expensive???

Not expensive if you know where to look.

so true!!

I am running a Chaintech mobo that supports socket 370 CPUs all the way up to 1.4 ghz AND DDR RAM and the cool thing is it was cheap.

I don't have a clue who you're calling 'Dude', nor whether that response was in jest. I do, however, know that if you don't want to know the answer, don't ask the question.......