8-Year Old Laptop Is This Brand Of RAM OK?

I believe so.

What type of stuff do you use it for?? That makes a lot of difference in what you need.

It will not make any difference unless you have high use software like Photoshop etc, even then it's not that much better.

The brand of RAM should be ok, and generally the brand does not make much difference. Only difference I have ever seen is the more expensive stuff may have closer matched chips, more efficient traces on the board etc. and can sometimes reduce the latency a little. When I used to build my own machines for gaming, I would pay the extra for that little bit of extra speed as well as the increased stability for overclocking. When building a machine for friends or family that were not heavy gamers, I just found the best value. Never had a problem with any RAM I ever bought.

Regarding the upgrade, you will notice some difference going from 2GB to 4GB, mostly if you are multi-tasking. The larger amount of physical memory will reduce the need for windows to use a swap file (saving background stuff from memory to the hard drive to make room for the program you just opened) Swapping is one of if not the most time consuming activity that takes place on your computer. Reducing the need will definitely make it feel faster.

Also, depending on current configuration, don't feel like you have to buy 2 modules. The M-6xxx Gateway has 2 banks of 1 slot each. Pop open the memory door and see how it is configured (you may have done this already) If you have 1 2GB module already installed, then you can buy just 1 more 2GB module as long as the type and speed is the same. They do not have to be the same brand. If you have 2 1GB modules installed, then yes you would have to order 2 2GB modules.

As a side note, we had a gateway for 10 years, it was the highest quality laptop we ever had. It took much physical abuse and still worked, finally got to where the display screen did not work right, though it would work with an external monitor. Decided it was not worth fixing at that point. HP and Toshiba laptops have not lasted as long

Here is a pair on e-Bay, $17.99 and free shipping. Atech 4GB Kit Lot 2x 2GB PC2-5300 5300 DDR2 DDR-2 667mhz 667 Laptop Memory RAM
Click here

When I am on a site such as eBay, one window.
And choose a product and stick it in the cart.
The hard drive bangs away for what seems to be too much time
Browser cache cleaned, disk defragged....yadda...
And if I am doing something like this and open G Mail to check, it really slows down. My friend's new Samsung laptop on the same modem is light years faster.

The processor so the sticker says is an Intel Duo Centrino 2.2 GHz.

Steep learning curve. Much older premium quality laptop much much better than newer scumbag bargain Compaq. Just the processor jungle alone is daunting...a zillion cores working at sundial speed, is a laughingstock compared to a pair of cores working at 2+ GHz when not heavily multi-tasking. The sound out of the tiny speakers on this Gateway is unreal compared to the Yugo Compaq. And this is an OLD laptop!

You got me. Chew and spit laptops?