I've heard a lot about Dells and proprietary hardware. Enough so that when looking for more memory for my computer that badly needs upgrading from its 256 MB state, I went to the Dell site first. They wanted $90 for a 512mb stick of RAM, $150 for 1 GB.

Well, I know I can beat that price. The question is, will Dell take it? So i hunted it down on Newegg, which is kind enough to feature a memory configuration checker of some sort...something that TigerDirect doesn't do, to my knowledge. My machine was in there (an Optiplex GX260, for anyone who might want to share their personal experiences with other memory sticks), and I was able to find 2 512MB sticks for about $60...with a pretty solid rating. One of the few negative comments mentioned Dell, but it mentioned a different model, one that takes PC2700 memory (mine is PC2100), so it would not be unlikely that these particular memory sticks didn't meet their criteria.

I also picked up a 1 gb flash drive (I admit to being a flash drive junkie...especially since 1 gb drives go for under $10 now if you don't go to (gag!) Wally World. Between the memory and the flash drive, my total bill came to just under the $90 I'd have paid for Dell memory.

And my dinosaur PC should be flying if the new memory works as advertised!