Help me out in here please...

Sounds like a software problem to me. Reseat all of the cables and redetect your drives in the bios. Maybe that will fix it. I'm not up to snuff on pentium boards so I can't really recommend a cheap upgrade. The ram should say on it if it's 100 or 133 I think you can also check that in the bios.

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Open up the case and make sure all the cables are nice and snug. While you're in there note what kind of motherboard you have. Hopefully you can see that while you're in there. If you're lucky there might be a sticker or something on your memory that says whether it's 100 or 133.

If the cables are fine you might want to consider deleting the device in the device manager and letting the OS redetect it. You could always reformat and start over also.

As far as upgrading, any reason you want to? If you're an avid gamer or using it for intensive purposes you might have started noticing the slowdown, but realistically your computer isn't that slow. I think it might even meet the min requirements for WinXP. I would however get some more memory since it's so cheap and I've noticed that my machine with 128 MB is using an awefull lot of virtual memory. Even if you have pc100, you could buy pc133 since I think it's cheaper. Your motherboard will just run it at 100 though.

If you are going to upgrade, it will depend on your motherboard. Depending on what you got you probably can put a PIII-1 Ghz in there. The problem with that upgrade, and the reason I didn't do it, is that it's cheaper to just buy a new motherboard and a AMD processor. You'll also enjoy a new motherboard and new features depending on what you get (eide100, DDR memory, etc). But for simplicity you might have the 1 Ghz option.

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256 MB is fine. So just get another stick of 128 MB. Last I checked 133 was cheaper. It's just supply and demand affecting the prices. Check <A HREF="http://www.pricewatch.com/" target="_new">Pricewatch</A> for prices on everything for computers. If you're buying memory though most people recommend <A HREF="http://www.crucial.com/" target="_new">Crucial</A>. Their prices are good, their memory top notch, and they have free shipping.

If you definitely are going to upgrade though (other than the P3 1 Ghz), you might want to stick it out until you do. DDR memory is the way to go so any memory you buy now that is SDRAM is a waste. If you do plan on waiting a couple months though it might be worth spending $20 on memory though.

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