2GB Kit (2 x 1GB) RAM for the Dell OptiPlex GX280 (DDR2-533, PC2-4200) Upgrade

ATTENTION! If your Dell OptiPlex is running slowly, especially after installing Windows 7 or above, upgrading the memory for less than $20 can be the solution for YOU.NOTE: The Dell OptiPlex series are 32-bit technology and max out with about 3.5GB of memory. These computers will not be able to use or benefit from having any more than 4GB total so DO NOT buy 6GB, 8GB, etc.* Why did you choose this rating?The product -- computer memory -- and the overall excellent efforts from the seller -- 4AllDeals ("dot" com) -- exceeded my expectations on several levels. It all adds up to another simply amazing Amazon experience.Also under the "Exceeding Expectations" category was the fact that the items arrived three days early, amazing. Just like Amazon.* What did you like or dislike?I liked the fact that 4AllDeals had exactly what I need at a great price. This two-gigabyte powerhouse package was only $19.63 with shipping and handling.The computer, procured in May, 2005, was always a very fast operating machine with its Windows XP operating system. After I purchased and installed Windows 7 -- good grief -- the Dell OptiPlex GX280 became extremely sluggish and bogged down and slow it was almost useless. It would barely crawl along, hardly running at all, causing all kinds of problems and taking years of life away.Gone were the robust days of its youth. It couldn't run programs simultaneously and locked up constantly. The machine had tremendous difficulty with having Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat Professional running at the same time. As for Adobe PhotoShop and Illustrator, Premier, Avid and other audio-video editing programs, forget about it. Internet streaming, Live Meeting, YouTube videos, daily practicality, gone. Poof.It was a burden to get the work done and of course with the life of a contractor involving intermittent periods of unemployment, it made the new job hunt that much more challenging and difficult. In my fabulous and exciting "other life" on evenings and weekends as a professional broadcast announcer, disc jockey (DJ) and MC (master of ceremonies), as well as serving as a public address (PA) announcer spinning the tunes, the computer suddenly was not my friend anymore.I knew that the Dell needed more random access memory (RAM) so it was time to ante up and just do it.What I truly enjoyed most of all, of course, is that the problems were solved in about five minutes. Two one-gigabyte memory circuit boards were ordered to take the place of the 2005 factory-original Dell OptiPlex GX280 memory -- two 250-megabyte memory circuit boards -- and after a brief installation period, WOW. The POWER is ON!As an automotive enthusiast and hot rodder involved with muscle cars from back in the day and that '55 Chevy from American Graffiti in my heart and soul ("Heart And Soul" is a song by The Cleftones as featured in American Graffiti), let me put it to you this way: The memory upgrade is like taking that anemic, one-million mile putt-putt greasy leaky old fix-or-repair-daily 250-cubic-inch in-line six-cylinder engine out of your car, and putting in a fresh high-performance 1,000 cubic-inch V-8 motor, you dig? And what we have here is the replacement of two 250-megabyte boards with two one-gigabyte boards -- essentially transplanting your sissy little old school broken 500-cubic inch engine for a 2,000 cubic-inch monster beast. You're on a power trip now.Plus, although I am a guy and know my way around (but I am not so arrogant that I avoid stopping to ask for directions, even though I've spent my career writing directions), just to check how to actually remove the old memory boards and install the new ones, I purposed in my heart to consult with a subject matter expert -- what we refer to in the business and technology world as an SME. No, I was not going to do anything outlandish, unreasonable, and expensive.I was not going to hop on over to Best Buy and shell out more cash for The Geek Squad to tell me what I already know or could find out on my own. As it turns out, the last time I went there, Geek Squad FAIL and couldn't diagnose why an HP laptop wouldn't boot up. The battery was completely discharged due to what turned out to be simply a short in the power supply cable, something I figured out on my own. Thanks, Geek Squad! We sincerely appreciate your credentials and expertise.I cruised on over to YouTube and searched for "Dell OptiPlex GX280 memory replacement" and found a very good instructional video narrated by a British-sounding chap.NOTE: For any issue or situation, run an Internet search of the question or subject term. Google is a good place to start. YouTube has an amazing library of significant, highly useful informational, entertaining, and persuasive materials as well. You almost can be your own SME, doctor, nutritionist, counselor, mechanic, lawyer, or hair stylist these days. Almost. I did state, "almost." For a lot of these things, of course, don't try 'em at home. Now, back to our show.It is very easy to change out the memory boards -- when you know how.Here, let us digress to recall the classic poem from Alexander Pope in "An Essay on Criticism" (1709):"A little learning is a dang'rous thing;Drink deep, or taste notthe Pierian spring."(Thank you, Ms. Patricia Meyer, English teacher at Solomon Juneau High School.)In this case, before you begin, make sure you have a grounding wrist strap -- the British bloke on YouTube and the on-screen text said that a wrist strap was not used because it would have obscured the viewing of the procedure, but anytime we go under the hood of electronic devices, we should wear protection: strap on that grounding wrist strap. More on that in a moment.The procedure for replacing the memory involves powering the computer OFF, then moving other items out of the way, such as the mouse, keyboard, monitor, speakers, whatever you have there. Oh, look, THERE is that thing you lost a few years ago. For best results, note or draw an ad hoc system diagram or map of where the plugs are and what they are for, then unplug everything so that you can administer the protocol ahead.This is also a great time to clean, dust, and vacuum around the work station. You have heard it said by those of old that "cleanliness is next to godliness," so I undertook a religious exercise to take care of that dust issue with a suitable cloth, purple liquid Sparkle spray cleaner, and Pledge® multi-surface everyday spray cleaner. Please -- I beg of you -- forgive me for letting the dust become such an issue that my character was nearly impugned -- thank you. I promise to do a better job with the dust abatement program now and in the future, going forward.Opening the computer is easy -- on each side are large "buttons" that, upon pressing inward, release the top or "hood" of the machine so that you can lift it up and get in there to conduct business.Since my computer had never, ever been opened, and had that 50-pound (22,72 kg) boat anchor known as a cathode ray tube (CRT) Dell 15" (diagonally measured) monitor sitting on it all of these years, I had to tap and pound a bit on the top and sides, then try again. Phew!Press the buttons inward and the top of the unit should come loose and then can be raised. First one side opened slightly, but not the other side. I tapped and pounded some more, then the opposite side raised slightly, but not the other side. Press and hold and lift and tug, jiggle it around just a little bit, it will eventually open.To help open it, there is a lever on the back of the unit that in most cases has a green plastic handle that appears to be about one inch (2,5 cm) in length and about a half-inch (12,5 cm) wide; pull up on the handle and lever to help release and raise the top of the unit, which sort of swivels away and remains attached. The top is heavier than you might expect since it is not just a housing cover but has some of the inner components attached to it. Carefully raise and support the top, it sort of swivels upward and back, then, you are almost ready to rock. Almost like Eddie Cochran singing "Twenty Flight Rock" my friends, cool lyrics for that number there, mm-hmm, that's right.! WARNING! Risk of static discharge. Static electricity can damage electronic components, such as those used in computers. Use a grounding wrist strap to help avoid damage from static electricity.* Right, we're back to the aforementioned grounding wrist strap. Well, guess what -- I couldn't find mine -- but I straightaway invented a work-around for this the last time I couldn't find it and had to go "under the hood" of my blue 2004 Samsung v45 Satellite laptop to install additional RAM.I made a grounding wrist strap by stripping the ends off a six-foot (two meter) long piece of automotive wire that I keep in my electrical projects bin elsewhere on the property.Get yourself a wire of some kind. You could use an old lamp cord or an extension cord, some kind of wire or 12-gauge wire from a roll of wire, whatever. Wrap one end around the wrist that you use the least; I am right-handed so I put the wire on my left wrist. Also, and IMPORTANT: in a place where you can secure the end of the wire on your wrist, maybe about eight to twelve inches from the end, depending on how large your wrist is, strip the covering off the wire there to expose the metal, and twist the metal end onto it so you have sort of a wrist loop or cuff that is metallically connected to itself. This forms one end of the grounding circuit. You are a scientist now, almost an electrical and electronics engineer and computer technician of great excellence and distinction my friend. Perhaps you will win the Nobel Prize.Attach the other end of stripped wire to the chassis of the computer. There is a round tab there, originally intended to be used for a padlock or locking cable, that will serve as a suitable ground, or you can attach the wire end to another suitable location on the chassis or "frame" of the unit.Carefully open the anti-static bags containing the new memory boards -- DO NOT damage the boards or printed circuits upon them. Safely set the memory boards, still in the bags, to the side for now.The existing memory boards within the innards of the computer are easy to identify due their size and shape. They are mounted in slots adjacent to one another. At each end of the mounting slots are white clips. Press the clips at each end down and outward to allow the existing memory boards to be removed. Carefully grasp and lift first one, then the other existing memory board up and out of the unit. As you do so, observe the small squarish slot or opening off-center in the base of each memory board. This is an alignment slot, present also on the new memory boards. It makes the installation almost fool proof.The new memory boards install by aligning the slot accordingly. The memory boards will only go in one way; the correct way. Carefully align and wriggle each board into its location, pressing mostly downward with a slight application of pressure as needed. Do not break, bend, or damage the memory boards or the electronic circuitry upon them. You may have to lift and re-locate the memory board to get it properly installed. At last, lock the memory boards in place by flipping up the white clips at each end and verify that the clips have snapped into place, locking the boards down securely in their locations.Close the top. Reconnect the monitor cable, reconnect all of your USB and other cables, and the power cable, etc. Slide the computer into its location and power up. The system will sense the new memory and the screen will display text to this effect. You may press the F1 function key to continue, or the F2 function key to enter the set up mode. Normally, unless you are a savvy computer technician or have some other configuration to conduct or operations to attend to under System Setup, we just press F1, smiling that our Dell OptiPlex now has two gigabytes of memory, and allow the computer to boot up.Congratulations on installing the memory yourself! Hooray for YOU. Enjoy the enhanced power of your new computer experience.* Who would you recommend this product to?I sincerely do recommend 4AllDeals memory and other products to you for your computer and other needs.Check `em out. Order what you need. Install and use it, let us know the results. We are already proud of you. THANKS!

My Dell Dimension computer, originally purchased in 2006, had 1GB of memory and was still running with Windows XP with no problems! I ordered this memory in preparation to replace Windows XP on my computer with a newer OS. However, when I initially installed the 4 GB of memory, my system kept giving me a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). I was able to narrow it down to one defective memory board (1 GB) using memtest+ booted off a USB drive. The memory board consistently showed errors in a confirmed good memory slot on the motherboard as I was able to use another 1GB memory board in the same slot and pass the memtest+ validation. I contacted the seller (CalvinNHobbs) and received a replacement board. The replacement board has been in the system (along with the 3 from the original purchase) for a week now with no hiccups and no BSOD.I would highly recommend that anyone installing any memory test their memory boards before attempting to load and use their main windows installation. This advice is especially true on this older memory design (DDR2) for reasons I'll get into at the end of this review. In my case, I loaded Win XP with a defective memory board. The OS files on the HD got badly corrupted after just two boot cycles. After removing the defective memory board, safe mode wasn't even working. I had resort to a OS restore. However, not all of the OS files restored perfectly. The repair installation failed to copy some files as it says it couldn't find them or says they are damaged -- even from a pristine original XP OS CD with no recording errors. By ignoring the damaged/missing file errors, I was able to get the system to a point where I could copy the files I wanted to preserve off of the hard drive. But the system still wasn't loading all of the drivers and none of the installed programs worked correctly anymore.The 'restore' or 'refresh' functionality that comes with the XP CD (without any service patches) didn't work because the latest rolled-up version is SP3 and many of the new patches are not backward compatible with older OS files. So, basically, after a service patch has been applied to the hard disk files, the repair functionally of any previous SP version of XP becomes useless. Even "SFC /scannow" will not work. (Thanks Microsoft. Aren't you supposed to make my life so much easier?)In the end, I had to format the drive and start with a fresh Win XP OS install, from scratch. Then, I had to tediously install SP3, all of the drivers that the base computer needs, as well as all of the drivers for the extra hardware on the computer (i.e., wireless adapter, etc.), and finally all of the programs that used the be on the disk to get the computer back to normal again. It was a mind numbing task. Don't get yourself into that mess!! Use memtest+ booted off of a CD or USB before messing with Windows on untested memory boards. (the same type of issues probably apply to Win 7, though I haven't gone through it myself)XP is going end-of-life in April 2014. So, after running with XP and the new memory for a while to get confidence that the memory boards were working, I updated my system to Win 7. Not all of my drivers and programs made the transition, but that's a different story. Win 7 runs very smoothly on 4GB of memory. The programs seem to be loading faster than with XP. When a program crashes, Win 7 doesn't become unstable like XP sometimes did.I'm giving this 4 stars as I'm happy to still be able to purchase it. This type of memory isn't produced by many manufactures anymore and any stock being sold has probably been sitting on the shelf for quite a number of years. Most of the memory manufactures have updated their production lines to make faster DD3 memory. I spent "only" $35 on 4 GB of memory (in Feb 2014) to give my 8 year old computer (practically on the death bed in computer years) another chance at life. This is a must buy item if you have an older PC and want to continue to use it with the newer operating systems. Win 7 specs say it can run on 2, however, use 4GB as a minimum for a much nicer experience. Also, replace your  CMOS Lithium Button Cell Battery  and  Computer PC Power Supply  for preventive maintenance. With the battery and power supply replacement, the total revival cost is only upto ~$100 -- much more economical than a new computer system with equivalent specs.Only time will tell if my "born-again" computer gives me another couple of years of life. We'll see!PS: Even with 4 GB of memory, 32-bit Win XP and Win 7 OS will only report ~3.5GB as available as a portion of the memory is reserved for older programs to work correctly.

All I needed was a simple memory upgrade for my computer to run more programs without running out of memory, and for the fact I wanted to run Windows 7, but needed more memory for that too.The memory chips are so small, there half of the original ones that came with my computer. My computer has 512 megabytes of RAM on 2 chips that total 256 a piece. My system has a spot for four RAM sticks at once. I was simply able to install these in the other two free slots, restart my system and it showed up immediately for a grand total of 2.5 gigabytes of memory. But all I have is 2.3 gigabytes of memory free the rest is on reserve for video memory.My system is way faster now, and I recommend if you got a Dell Dimension 8400 get this one will work fine in your system.PS. Just to clarify you get two memory sticks, Each stick has one gigabyte of memory, For a grand total of two gigabytes of memory. (available memory will vary)If you have any questions leave me a comment below and I'll try to get back to you, Or if you have any questions upgrading RAM in any other computer leave me a comment below too.