I really need help. I finished my computer and had all those problems that we have supposedly traced back to the RAM. I sent those sticks back and now have to find more. What do you suggest I get? This has been the most difficult part to shop for! Here's what I want:

-brand name. no more crappy generic for me. I've learned my lesson!
-512MB to 1GB. This would either be with one or two sticks of 512MB. I want plenty of room to expand in the future.
-PC2700 or better
-around $200

Again, this is the motherboard I have.

What do you guys suggest?

I got burned when I bought 4-5gb worth of generic Taiwanese RAM with unfamiliar chips. I had to take the vendor's word that it was CAS2 because the chips were impossible to research. Basically, I was sold CAS3 memory for CAS2 prices. I didn't verify this 'till months later, so the damage had been done.

Ever since that incident a year ago, I have been buying Crucial memory. I know I can trust them.

Yup - Crucial. I got a 1/4 Gb a couple of years back and 1 Gb from them about 5 months ago. No problems, best prices I could find, branded. They offer good guarantees too.

While on the topic of Crucial's price, they almost always have coupons that can be applied to your order. This is just icing on the cake. Check out this website to get current codes.

What about this?

I looked for Crucial but there was hard to find on Pricewatch and the like...

Crucial.com yo!

Wow, I guess their ads on TV aren't reaching the right people.

They have TV ads?

Of course, those same people most likely have Tivo

What are the ads like, I may have seen them. I can't believe a memory company has television ads!

Kingston also makes quality memory, also with a lifetime warranty, and have been doing it for a long time. I've noticed that sometimes Crucial's prices are much lower and sometimes Kingston's prices are, depending on exactly what you're getting.

Well, you're most likely to see them on TechTV, MSNBC, CNBC and stuff like that. They usually have some guy with co-workers standing over him waiting for his computer to finish crunching a spread sheet. Then, after installing more memory (Crucial of course), the office applauds him.

There is another one, but I can't remeber it right now. Anyway, you're not going to find PC3000 or some other wacky speed at Crucial. This doesn't bother me because I am mainly concerned with stability.

Well I was hoping on putting 512MB sticks into my machine, but Crucial only sells up to 256MB in PC2700. That kinda stinks. I know I'm going to want to upgrade past 512 in the future, and I'd like more than one slot to do it in.

Okay, so I don't mind not having PC3000 or whatever, but what about 512MB? Why don't they offer that? As I said, I want future upgrades to be a little easier.

Corsair sell 512MB PC2700+ memory. Look under their eXtreme Memory Speed section. You'll probably have to pay a premium for it though. I didn't check pricing so it might not be too bad.

- Trevor

Yeah, Corsair has 512 sticks it was Crucial that didn't. I have a link to some PC3000 Corsair 512MB sticks up further, but I'll probably take robricc's advise and stick with reliability over speed (I've learned my lesson) and go with the PC2700. It's also about $20 cheaper.

PC3000 will gain you no advantage anyhow if you don't overclock the memory bus.

Let me know if you find any really good deals, I might grab a gig of memory for my next system, using PC2700.

/me waits impatiently for the Shuttle SS51 release...

I don't know if I'll find any good deals. At this point, I'm going for safe and reliable, and soon. I absolutely HATE that my computer has to be out of comission for several weeks just because of the RAM. I now have to wait to get my account credited from the old RAM I returned, then I have to wait for them to ship it to me. ARGH!! Stupid me and my best price searching.