New 256MB memory reading as 128MB?

Why is it doing that?
Slot 1 128
Slot 2 256 (reading as 128)
Slot 3 64
Slot 4 64.
256MB is what I installed today. Should I put that in slot 1 and 128 in slot 2? I didn't think it mattered.
At least it is reading it lol, this is me after all!
I wonder if it is the BIOS? Could it/ would it be?

(my earlier post today wasn't answered yet)
Win2k pro sp4,
550 mhz Pentium III.
Please help and thank you.

 

What motherboard do you have kiddo?

If you're not sure this freebie will tell you:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4181

 

You need to find the specifications of your Mobo. Chances are, you need to install your RAM in pairs, meaning both modules need to be identical. Since you have 128MB in the 1st slot, it wants to see the 2nd as 128MB also. I would be willing to bet you need another 256MB RAM module in your first slot, or vice versa.

 

Ack! It cost $86 for the 256mb I bought yesterday. I'm at work but it is an ASUS MB
Okay, got this from daughter off the Belarc Advisor: (As written, hope it's what you need)
Main Circuit board: ASUS Tek
Computer Inc. P3B-f rev.1.01
Bus Clock 100mhz
BIOS Award Software, INc
ASUS P3B-F ACPI BIOS rev 1004 10/19/99
Does this help?
Sorry alanc, at work so a download won't help much! I like that aida32, it's easy to read

 

I just happen to have that mobo manual on my PC (I've worked with that board before).

Let me check into it.

You put PC100 or PC133 RAM in there right?

 

PC133, Alan
Home now, do you still want me to download the other app?
Thanks

 

No, but Everest is nice to have around.

PC133 is fine, although $86 for 256mb is godawful expensive

OK this is all starting to come back to me now. I had a similar if not identical issue with this board awhile back. It boils down to 'single-sided' vs. 'double-sided' DIMMs. Quoting from the P3B-F manual (stupid PDF can't copy and paste )

-and-

What this means to you is that the board doesn't support the (relatively) newer single-sided 256MB DIMMs (which is what I suspect you have), only the older double-sided ones. The single-sided 256MB DIMMs will only be recognized as 128s.

If there are chips on only one side of the stick it's single-sided. On both sides it could be either. Here's how to tell that (refer to the top diagram):
http://www.white-chocolate.com.au/Manuals/sdram.htm

Is there any way you can return it for a refund? If it's single-sided it's not entirely compatible, plus even though I haven't priced PC133 in ages, IMO you got ripped

Maybe old-tech RAM is more expensive now than it was years ago?

 

alanc,
I just checked with the prog. you suggested (its the same as the Aida32) and I have PC100 in the other 3 slots and the new one is PC133. Does it matter?

 

I bought it at Staples yesterday. I think I have 30 days. I will have to take off the cover and look. I am steamed
So should I just return it and get 2 128's?
(I can take out one of the 64's. Then....I can get another 128 later).<sigh>
I think I paid $40 for the 128 I installed last time. <bigger sigh>

 

How many integrated circuits (ICs -- the black chips on the green PCB of the memory stick) are attached to the memory stick?

Older chipsets like the 440BX/TX and i810/i820 series are not capable of addressing modern high-density RAM ICs. If your stick of RAM has only 8 (or maybe even 4) ICs, then the IC chips are too dense for the chipset to address. A stick of 256 MB PC100/133 will need to have 16 ICs (8 on both sides) for most mobos that age to understand. Fewer ICs are less expensive to produce, however, so RAM manufacturers have abandoned the low density ICs.

It is exceedingly annoying to determine both what the limit is on any given board as well as the exact IC configuration of any PC100/133 RAM sold. Best bet: Go to Crucial.com and use their memory configurator to find RAM that is guaranteed to work with your system.

 

No. The RAM will all run at PC100 speeds. The PC133 RAM as rated to run as high as PC133.

 

Thank you, I will do that
I'll let you know how I do with this.

The thing is, still been getting freezes, so it is probably something else.
Mybe if I can get my money back I should put it into the video card instead?

Thanks all for your time and help

 

Yep, I would tend to weed out all the smaller and slower RAM sticks, as they will only slow things down in the final analysis.

Either stick with the one 256MB, or get 2X128MB. I would go for the former configuration first, to allow for easy upgrading. Stick to all D.D.R. (double-sided RAM), if possible, S.D. RAM is rather obsolete, except on old MOBO's, nowadays.

B.T.W:- You paid waay to much for that RAM! Actually I could have sent you one for nuthin' over if I had known, as I always have a few lying around the workshop. Postage for a RAM wouldn't be all that great for me - even from these dark woods!

 

I think you're a bit confused. DDR RAM isn't double sided. It's double data rate. What's more, the sockets for DDR ram are incompatible with SDR (single data rate) RAM.

PC66, PC100, PC133, and PC150 are all SDR RAM. PC1600, PC2100, PC2700, and PC3200 are DDR RAM. It is physically impossible to mix and match the two.

RAM that has the IC's on both sides is known as (IIRC) dual banked RAM. Both DDR SDRAM DIMMs and SDR SDRAM DIMMs can be dual banked. To the best of my knowledge, even the 440BX/TX chipset could handle dual banked RAM (the manual for the P3B-F says it does). That's how it was able to use sticks of 256MB PC100 RAM. There were 16 ICs of 16MB each, 8 in each bank. The chipset can only access one bank at a time, and the data bus for PC100 RAM is 64 bits (so each IC in the active bank can send one byte at a time). [Note: ECC is 72-bits since there's a 9th IC for the parity data.]

The long and short of it: Most older chipsets do not support RAM with more than 16MB per IC. i810/i815 might support up to 32MB per IC, but I don't think so. And obviously: capacity / # of IC = size of each IC.

If anybody could give me a link to some better detailed info, I'd love to see it. Nobody except Crucial seems to want to talk about it at all, and Crucial dumbs it down too far. All the old info on chipsets doesn't even mention it since it wasn't an issue at the time at all.

No, he didn't. If the RAM he has actually has 16 ICs, he paid just about what he should: $75-$85. If it has only 8 or 4, he paid about $20-$30 too much. RAM, especially legacy RAM like PC100, is very expensive now. The days of $0.10 per MB are gone.

 

Yep, I realise the difference between the two ( 'Keying' of the holes, etc.).I build the things for a living, and have been doing so for many years. I'm well aware of the physical differences, and what Double Data Rate means, or I wouldn’t have posted.

I did not take the liberty of looking up the ASUS PB3F mainboard, but a link from Ars can be found here. http://www.overclockers.com/articles35/. and here http://www.dealtime.com/xPF-Asustek_Intel_440BX_Chipset_P3B_F.

Some of the earlier D.D.R. mainboards had sockets that facilitated for both DDR and S.D RAM.

'Prolly didn't explain it all that clearly, as I rushed the post a little. .

In any event, the point I was getting at is that mixing smaller, slower RAM sticks with faster ones is probably not a good idea as the machine will tend to run at the speed of the slowest RAM stick (PC 100 in this case, as was said). In some configurations it will ignore some of the RAM. Depends on the specific mainboard and RAM configuration.

As for pricing - I don’t know what current U.S. retail prices are, it's been a good while since I lived there, but they’re a hell of a lot cheaper than that in Western Australia, which is where I’m based nowadays. I pay about (Au) $60 for 256MB, which equates to approx (US) $45, and that's retail, so yeah, I consider (US) $86 for 256MB of RAM excessive.

As I’m fairly good friends with Susan in other Fora, I was simply offering to help her out, that’s all.

 

Good morning Phantom and da chicken.

Firstly this is what I got from crucial.com:
168-pin DIMM Banking:4 (4 banks of 1)
Chipset:Intel 440BX
Error Detection Support:ECC and non-ECC
Graphics Support:AGP 2X
Max Unbuffered SDR SDRAM: 1024MB (Thats more than I thought it could have)
Module Types Supported:Unbuffered only
SDR SDRAM FrequenciesC66 and PC100
Supported DRAM types: SDR SDRAM only
USB Support: 1.x. Copmpliant

Then there is a list of compatible modules and the most popular is:
"256 MB-CT32M72S4D65 SDRAM .Pc100 CL=2 Non-parity"
some are PC100, some PC133; some are ECC, some non-parity.

It has 8 chips on it,on one side only, I checked and switched it into slot 1 last night. Still reads as 128.
I looked at the example on white-chocolate.com.au that alanc posted above, mine looks exactly like the first pic.

I am going into town tomorrow,shall I return it and buy the video card instead, the report says the 128MB Crucial Radeon 9200SE will work with this.(So will the 9800 pro and the X800 pro but I can't afford those.)
PC froze so many times last night that my son gave up. <sigh>

This is what it says on the package:"256MB SDRAM 32x64 PC133 168 Pin"

Thank you for your continuing help and maybe if I figure it out and buy some from you Phantom, I will pay for the postage!

 

What video card do you have right now? The 9200SE is fairly low-end, so it just depends on how much of a performance increase you gain by getting it.

 

Ah, I just saw your other thread. I would say yes, a Radeon 9200SE will give you a good performance boost from an ATI Rage Pro 8Mb. However, I don't think it will fix your crashing problem...

 

<sigh>
I really don't know what to do.
Everything has been checked out and is okay (seemingly). That's why I thought of just upgrading some the internals. New pc (hopefully) in a couple of weeks but I know this one (bugs and all!). Thought I would put in a larger Hd, more memory, upgrade the video card and buy a new monitor. Maybe it's too old to bother. I would happily keep using this and give the kids another one, heck they can have a Dell (I know, I know) each and we will just link up the wireless for them.
The freezing is so random but it is usually to do with graphics. I have even seen Adobe Reader lock up though. Ahhh.
Thanks for your help, maybe I will get the card anyway, at least it can't hurt!

 

No need to pay a cent. I have mucho of this stuff lying around from different jobs. I often send stuff out to help set up different folks P.C.'s and sometimes even forum servers. That's another story.

Crucial RAM is pretty good, I use it on a lot of machines, including what I'm using a.t.m.

Review Linky:- http://www.hexus.net/content/reviews/review.php?dXJsX3Jldmlld19JRD0yMzEmdXJsX2hpc3Rvcnk9LTI=

Re Video cards:- A Radeon 9200SE, will certainly give you a performance boost as compared to your old card, as Wyatt said. But I kinda like the 9600 range as very good value for money. I normally install the Radeon 9600 Pro (R96-D3gn) on customers P.C.'s if they're not sure what they want. It has 256MB of video RAM (new model); T.V. out; CRT capable; DVI; s/w DVD etc. They're usually wrapped in it. Price? About (U.S) $188.00. Still not exactly cheap, but one of the best performance for ya dollar. There are a lot cheaper 9600 versions around too, with accordingly fewer features.

Feature Comparison Link:- http://www.ati.com/products/radeon9600/radeon9600pro/compare.html

I think I still have some of the low-end Radeon 9200 and 9600's lying about, but you 'prolly don't need them any more.

 

Phantom, the memory I bought is "K Byte" brand, maybe that is Staples brand?
The video card was about $50 I think. And it was a 7000. I haven't searched for comparison prices yet.On the crucial report it gave the prices on their cards as follows: (compatible for this PC)
128MB Crucial Radeon 9800 Pro-$269
128Mb " " 9200SE- $59.99
256 MB " " X800 Pro $489.99 All U.S. dollars.

 

Looks like Staples sell K Byte http://reviews.cnet.com/K_Byte_256MB_PC3200_DDR_400MHz_Memory/4505-3000_7-30836576.html. C-net claims they are good. Don't deal with that brand much over here.
One of the main suppliers from the net, at least, appear to be Tiger Direct.com
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=302038&Sku=K43-1902

The video card prices seem okay.

At the end of the day you're probably better off just running the 256MB module by itself, and then getting another one a bit later on. I'm willing to wager that mixing the memory sizes and a weak video was causing the computer to go slow in the first place.

 

The PC doesn't actually run slow, it's pretty zippy!
Even with the additional '128" that it's showing it doesn't make any difference to the speed of anything that I have noticed
Okay, I'll return the 256MB module, keep my 128 and 2 64's for now and maybe order that 128MB 9200SE video card. (Did you say you had one of those for sale?)
Thank you for all your help

 

Cool I see. 'Prolly causing the crashing tho, if you've done nothing else special. The old 8MB v/card would probably not be too fast at all on games, if that's your thang.

I THINK I have a few of the low-endish ATI 128MB cards around the place somewhere. If so, and you can use it, I'll send you one, gratis (free)

Only catch is, I've done some major renovations to the house and as a consequence the computer areas, so I'm not exactly sure where they are, or if I already gave 'em away - but I'll have a look around for ya.

(Yeah, I know, I'm not very organised, especially of late. Been flat out trying to get these Forensic Software programs out. Actually I'm supposed to be in Kuala-Lumpur as we speak. But I kinda got out of it )

 

He he, - Kuala Lumpar- that really would be the jungle!
Sure I can wait, if you really don't mind, this has been so long now I can, ,handle it
PM me and let me know what you need.
Thanks again

 

.....Kay. Will do.



Yeah, Da Phantom goes jungle!
Last year I had some contract work on some electronic controller gear -included free travel....To Astana, Kazakhstan (Siberia!); and a mining site in the New Guinea Highlands - never again! . I still can't walk properly from a foot infection..... C'est la vie, I guess.