posted on September 11, 2001 02:01:17 AM
Today I decided to purchase 128 Megs of memory to speed up this 464 Mhz system since its beginning to get bogged down by all the bloatware that is a sorry excuse for software.
I checked eBay and then a few other auctions, and each time I looked at an ad I recoiled in disgust. Average price to ship this 2 ounce piece was 8 dollars, when $3.50 is max, and it hardly needs any packing materials. Even when the prices looked cheap, the shipping brought it to around retail, and I simply will not pay retail for new merchandise at an auction where I essentially have no warrantees.
I am a vendor myself working on a red star, so certainly not naive about the realities of buying and selling in the online world. But I would be ashamed to charge such outrageous prices for shipping just to make up for lower starting bids to undercut the competition. Screw eBay and their 'fee avoidance' concept. I would certainly never snitch on these people. But it amounts to fraud, plain and simple as it is an obvious attempt to deceive.
I decided quickly not to buy this item at auction.
I heard there was a large rebate for memory at Best Buy. But I am no fool. 90% of the time I have tried those mail in rebates, they have never arrived. Another fraud.
I tried pricegrabber. The 'best' price was by a vendor that from his feedback was another complete fraud. But I checked further and found an established company with good feedback and $4.00 shipping, with an option for faster shipping if required. I wound up paying around $23 for it, and felt it was well worth getting a product from an honest vendor without deceptive practices.
I don't mind 'reasonable' packaging costs, and do not get upset on a dollar or so above actual postage.
The moral of the story is that inflated shipping and handling will turn off buyers to online auctions. It turned ME off, and I make my living at this.
posted on September 11, 2001 03:30:25 AM
Did you mean to say that you have an older 486 system? You need to check the specs on the motherboard if that is what you meant, because it most likely will not take that much memory. Back when 486's were being sold, anything over 16 or 32mb was unheard of and there were no sticks of memory that had 128 or 256mb ram. Memory sticks are way different now than they were then, and currect memory won't even fit in that old of a system.
As far as where to buy memory, Crucial.com is a great choice. If you have a major vendor system such as Dell or Gateway, you can look up your system and they will tell you what to buy. I'm not sure how far back their information goes.
posted on September 11, 2001 04:08:49 AM
This is an overclocked Celeron 300A. 464 Mhz is its current operating speed. Nothing wrong with the machine, as it purrs fine with the Abit motherboard and voltage set at 1.95 V to reduce heat. This will handle 384 megs. 64 Mb current memory running 98SE, and the only reason I loaded that garbage was that I needed better USB support for my vidcam.
I have a 486 networked and its pretty fast actually. It seems when 98 installs on a 486 machine it leaves alot of bloat behind. These are nice machines and at 133 Mhz faster than the early Pentiums.
I will not be 'upgrading' anytime soon. Simply no need. And I would *never* buy a preassembled system. Especially from a major company where they have a tendency to pad with junk and make alot of things proprietary. Nope. I have my AT and ATX cases, and I'll make my own systems as I need them. And for a LOT less money!
posted on September 11, 2001 04:21:25 AM
I didn't understand the 464...but I still say check out Crucial. They have great prices, sell good quality ram, and ship very fast. Every person I know that is "in the know" recommends them. I ordered more memory for my GW portable shortly after I bought it, and it was delivered within 4 days of when I ordered it.
We've got two desktops systems, a Gateway PII 400 and an AMD k-6 450 that we built ourselves. We've done upgrades to both, and have never run into proprietory parts on the GW. The only thing that could be considered proprietory was the tower design, which meant we had to hack some pieces off of the plastic on the front to use a standard floppy drive. They abandoned that design after about 6 months, but that was too late for us. We've never run into the actual parts or cables being special or different than standard issue. We've actually had a bit of trouble with the homebuilt AMD, but I think that is a MOBO issue along with a children issue.
We've worked on many different systems, and I must say that Dell and GW are generally the easiest (that we've actually taken apart and worked on). Compaq, Acer, Packard Bell, HP's, Compudyne (comp usa) and the like are nightmares. Special cables, special ram, just a nightmare. Hubby politely refuses now to even try to work on them.
posted on September 11, 2001 04:58:12 AM
>I heard there was a large rebate for memory at Best Buy. But I am no fool. 90% of the time I have tried those mail in rebates, they have never arrived. Another fraud.<
We just purchased a second 128mb stick from Best Buy. Both had a mail in rebate offer. The day that I mailed our second one the first rebate check came! (just about 2 months as stated on the form)
The first was $59.99 after rebate.
The last one will be $19.95 after rebate.
>Even when the prices looked cheap, the shipping brought it to around retail, and I simply will not pay retail for new merchandise at an auction where I essentially have no warrantees. <
Same here, only I feel the same way about mail order in general and that's why I opted for the BB memory.
I can have it now and if there is a problem just take it right back.
posted on September 11, 2001 05:32:15 AM
All very interesting. I'm posting to remind folks that here is a classic example of what everyone should do, "DO YOUR HOMEWORK!", as the posters here are doing.
