Most likely, yes.

There is often some confusion when people have a computer that comes with PC2100 DDR and see a sale on PC2700 DDR RAM. They may not be sure if the RAM will work in their machine.

First thing is to make sure the RAM is correct for the computer, be it SODIMM for a laptop or maybe DIMM for a desktop. There is also ECC, Buffered, and registered RAM, but the majority of RAM sold is nonECC, unbuffered and not registered.

Next when surfing eBay or other online sites computer memory shoppers will see an auction or listing for PC3200/PC2700/PC2100 multi-speed RAM. What exactly is it? Can this be used in a laptop that uses PC2100?

The answer is usually yes. What happened in the industry is there was PC2100, it eventually was replaced with PC2700 and the newer computers that used PC2700 enjoyed slightly increased speed. But PC2700 was designed to be backward or downward compatible to PC2100. Thus when PC3200 was released it was downward compatible to both PC2700 and PC2100.  So as you see there really isn’t a special multi-speed RAM.

But the speed of the computer will only go up to the speed it was built to go up to. So in other words if you buy a computer that uses PC2100 and replace that with PC2700 it will still perform at a speed as if it was PC2100 installed. On the other hand a computer that was manufactured to run PC2700 that has PC2100 installed will run at the slower speed.

The bottom line is a computer designed to run PC2100 will clock itself down to the correct speed when using PC2700 or PC3200. On the other hand a computer designed to take PC2700 that uses PC2100 will lose some speed.

One word of caution is a buyer must be alert if an auction or listing is for DDR or DDR2. These are not designed to be interchangeable. Again, if you have questions refer to your manufacturer or to the retailer or eBay seller.

I hope this guide is helpful. I obviously am not writing to the techies and geeks, but to the Moms, Pops and normal end users of the world, that like me, need simple help every now and then.