"Paul \(Erie\)" wrote in message ...

What is Kingston ValueRam,

It's their slower memory but still has the lifetime warranty and
toll-free support that their costlier memory has.

Kingston memory used to always contain name brand chips when I bought
it, but a few months ago I received some 256MB PC2100 with unmarked
chips. However it worked fine, except when every BIOS setting was at
the fastest (no errors if any setting was just below the fastest). My
luck wasn't nearly as good with more recent Kingston memory of the
same model number, where all three samples showed errors with the same
ECS K7S5A 3.1 mobo (and a friend's identical one), regardless of BIOS
settings, unless I slowed the memory bus speed form 266 MHz to 200
MHz. The first (unmarked chips) gave dozens of errors with MemTest86
and GoldMemory. The second (Hynix chips) gave about five, as did the
third (unmarked chips). Kingston had no solution, except for
replacement.

The older memory was marked:

KVR-PC2100DDR/256 266X64C25/256 ASSY IN USA

The newer memory was marked:

KVR-PC2100DDR/256 PC2100DDR/256 ASSY IN CHINA

The circuit boards were completely identical with both sets.

Kingston said that these modules were slightly different, and
Kingston said that these modules were exactly the same.

I also bought some 256MB PC2100 CAS 2.5 K-byte memory, which always
seems to have unmarked or second-rate chips, like Spectec or Mystic.
The first one, with Spectec chips (Micron), failed MemTest86 after
several hours, but the others, with Mystic chips (Nanya), passed, even
with every BIOS setting at the fastest.