tom:
Depending upon how many slots the mother board has in it, most have 3, you
can up grade the machine with how ever much you want, short of a gig in each
slot that is.

If you are looking at another 128MB or even another 256MB, your only going
to pay about 15 to 20 bucks per stick of ram.
If you leave the existing 128 and put in another 2 128MB  chips, or another
single 256 chip, your only going to be paying up to probably $35 for them
all together...a 256MB chip is around $30 or 35.
If you know the actual model of the machine then you can easily check online
for what sort of ram it takes, or phone HP directly and they can look it up
for you.
My guess is probably PC133 184 pin.
If you want a new machine thats ok, but it will be much much cheaper to get
more ram and even add another hard drive for way way less then a new
machine.
You could put another 20 or 40 gigs of hard drive space pluss another 256MB
of ram all for less then $100.
You might find a machine on ebay for that much that is faster, but you will
still have to pay shipping and install windows xp/98 and all your other
programs after you get it.
And your not going to find anything cheaply that will make a substantial
difference, you would have to upgrade probably to a 1.5 or 1.6GB machine
before you would notice any difference from your 566.

A note on RAM, there are usually several different kinds out there, ranging
in price of course.  Unless you plan on doing heavy processing or allot of
heavily graphics bassed gaming, the cheapest ram is going to suffice. For a
128MB stick of PC133, you are looking at anywhere from $15 at the lower end,
up to probably over $100 for the very high end ram.  The $15 will do just
fine for most things that most of us do with computers.
 73
Colin, V A6BKX

----- Original Message -----
From: "T Behler" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, December 27, 2005 5:37 PM
Subject: off topic: computer question


> Hi, all.
>
> Can someone tell me how you can find out how much, and what kind of  RAM
you
> have in an old HP desk-top computer?
>
> I am using an HP Pentium 566 down in my ham shack with Jaws 3.7, I think,
> and Windows 98 SE.
>
> I think it has only 128 megs of ram, which is why it's a bit sluggish with
> Jaws.  I find that Jaws hesitates when I try to enter info into a log, and
> sometimes I have to type the first letter of a call twice before Jaws
starts
> responding.
>
> And, if I want to upgrade to 256 megs of Ram, what kind of price am I
> looking at?
>
> With newer and better computers now available on E-bay and such, I'm just
> trying to decide whether it is worth continuing to get the old 566 to
work,
> or just replace it with a newer desk-top machine for the shack.
>
> Thanks as always, and best 73 from Tom Behler: kB8TYJ
>