John --

1.  Packard Bell motherboards are proprietary motherboards, made specifically
for Packard Bell using Packard Bell design specs.
2.  Your Packard Bell manual is specific about the memory it wants used.
3.  I have worked on (too) many Packard Bell computers, and they are extremely
temperamental beasties. If the manual says to use fast page, I would believe it.
4.  I have experimented with fast page and EDO RAM in a variety of computers,
and the only times that I have seen EDO RAM work is in systems specifically
designed to accept them.
5.  Many motherboards can accept both fast page and EDO RAM, and their
specifications state that.
6.  I do not believe that the two sources you cite are correct in making such a
blanket statement. Some motherboards, of high quality, and designed by engineers
with an eye to the future, can use both types of memory.  Other motherboards
simply cannot. I have tried.

Conclusions:

As far as I can see, you have two choices:

1.  Try buying some EDO RAM and see if your computer boots.  If you choose this
route, make certain your vendor will allow you to return the EDO memory if your
computer won't boot.
2.  Buy the fast page RAM.

Sincerely,

Roxanne Pierce
R2 Systems, San Diego
mailto:[log in to unmask]


> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Rinehart Sent: Monday, July 20, 1998 06:43
>
> To go back to the original question that I asked, I would
> like to upgrade the memory on an older Packard Bell system.
>
> The User Guide [published 8/3/94] for the computer states on
> p. 5-24: " 2. You should use 72-pin 60, 70 or 80 ns fast page mode
> DRAM SIMM's.
>
> And yet Scott Mueller's Upgrading and Repairing PC's states
> on page 803 paragraph 2 of the 8th edition, "You can install
> EDO memory in older systems that do not support it because
> EDO is backward-compatible with standard (called
> fast page mode) memory."