Quote Originally Posted by Stooge
...re : "removing a bad strip" do you mean prying off one of those black rectangles (there are 8 on each side) of my 512 mb DDR 400Mhz CL3 RAM thing? I might look into that if i have time..
NO, by strip I meant the simm, what you call the RAM thing. Those memory chips are surface mount memory, they don't just pry off. I doubt if you could repair one with common tools (I couldn't and I've had mil grade solder training and have replace more chips on older style printed circuits than I can remember).

DDR is still available, but likely will cost you more than newer DDR2 or faster memory (a DDR system needs DDR and cannot use the faster memory), but it is still likely to be a lot less than DDR was priced at when your system was new. It is up to you to decide if replacing it is worth it.