how many sticks

[Robinhood]

I have a motherboard in an old P3 that will take a maximum of PC133  512MB SDRAM. I now have (1) 128MB stick and (1)256MB. It has 3 slots. When I went to the Crucial.com scan they advised that I get (2) new 256MB sticks and use the existing 256MB stick as well.

If the maximum amount of RAM I can use is 512 MB, Why would they suggest (3) sticks of 256MB instead of just (2) ? 

[patio]

Check your MBoard manual for RAM capacity...Crucial although extremely good are not always 100% correct as they do the spec compilations in house...
You may be able to use more but the manuf. is the definitive source...

[DaveLembke]

Some Pentium 3 Boards will go to 2GB, but it would be a Server Motherboard with 4 to 6 slots. You can also install all 3 sticks and see if it will address them all correctly and run memtest86 to be sure that they get along with each others addressing and latency times. BUT Generally Most Pentium 3 motherboards do cap at 512MB in maximum memory addressing.

[foggs]

i recently set one up for a friend..it was a dell w933mhz p3 the specs mfr was max 512mb 2 slots pc133. I put a 256/128 and upped that with a cheap video card, but honestly that was a lean machine considering its age. ran full motion vids and everything. i was impressed

[Robinhood]

Patio you were absolutely right.
Crucial suggested PC133 SDRAM however the manual said PC100. It also has 3 slots for RAM however Slot one  and slot two take two sided sticks Slot 3 takes a one sided stick only and can only be done if slot two also has a single sided stick. It is all mute now due to an accident I had when installing a stick into the number two slot. The lighting was not very good. I pulled all of the wires out of the way to put the stick in.  I missed a black wire from the fan. I put the stick in cutting the wire in half and messing up the number two slot. The most I can put in the number one slot is 256 SDRAM. That is not enough for Windows XP and Quickbooks which is what I need.
Is there anything I can do now aside from buying a new computer?

[Robinhood]

P.S.
Thank you to all who responded and especially to Patio for your excellent insight.

[patio]

Good News that you're sorted and stop by anytime...