[hwshi]

hi all, i want to upgrade the ram in my inlaws imac 500 running 10.2.it has 128 in it .can i purchase any pc100 sdram for it? i notice that the apple vendors prices for ram are nearly double what i would pay at a pc shop.mac economics at work? or simply specific brand?
do i need to remove the 128 before adding the new chip or will it recognise the 512 and the 128?

[edavis]

For what it's worth, I purchased a PC100 256 MB chip for my 500 MHz DVSE, and installed it myself with virtually no problems. Maybe I just got lucky, because I have heard of others having some problems with generic memory, but give it a try.

There are plenty of places to get instructions on how to do the upgrade, try xlr8.com, or some such site.

Good luck!

[slider]

First go to ramseeker.com to start your ram seeking. Some people have had trouble with ram from some vendors, but I have but from different vendors always going for one of the lowest three listed at ramseeker for the past four year upgrading 10 iMacs, 3 PowerMacs, 3 iBooks some more that once, and I have never had any problem with any of the ram. You hear the few bad stories, but each of these vendors guarantee their ram for life, just check. Now as far as the ram upgrade itself. you can drop a 512MB chip in right next to the 128, they do not need to be upgraded in pairs. you can max the ram to 1GB, but you'll need to lose the 128MB chip. Since you're upgrading the ram I assume you know that Mac OS X loves ram, the more you have the better it runs, although 640MB will probably do just fine. Good luck.

Edit: just checked ramseeker myself, 1GB (2x512MB) is going for $130

[hwshi]

thanks for the replies, wish i knew i could of used generic ram when i had my mac. oh well.
having used os/x i know about the need for speed.thanks for the heads up in any case.

[slider]

The two mac commandments

Thou can never have enough ram.

Thou shalt never buy ram from Apple.