I bought some RAM ( 2 64 Mb DIMMs, supposedly Gateway surplus or pulled parts) on eBay, but the box doesn’t recognize either as good. It doesn’t hang or complain, it just ignores them completely.
One reason to recommend buy a PC with a Dell or Gateway brandname — even if you buy it used and let someone take that initial loss of value — is you can use the serial number/production tag to find out what kind of parts are/were in it and what you need to upgrade. That was a big help to me as I tried to work why kind of RAM this machine needs and was why I was confident the DIMMs I found would work.
Trouble is, I don’t want to buy more than I need: you can buy 32 Mb or 128 Mb, but not 64. If you install in pairs, as the docs suggest, that means I can either double or quintuple the RAM. I was looking for triple by adding the two 64s.
Now of course since there are pulled parts (and were shipped in bubblewrap in a paper envelope, not an anti-static bag or anything) there are no refunds, just returns and exchanges.