Help setting up new RAM, pleae.

[abjr65ca]

Hello there,

I need help setting up my new RAM. I have 3 new stick of; pc133/100, 256meg, 32x4 High Density Configuration, 168 pins non-ECC, 7.5ns timing, 3.3V unbuffered.

My motherboard is an Abit BH-6, pentium 3 450MGh, running window ME. The user manual says that, it support single and double density DIMMS. My bios as been flash to the lates update that Abit will give me.

It only reconises the 3 stick as 128x3=384meg.

[gibsinep]

Well your board says it supports 768mb ram so that isnt it, Do you have access to another machine you can try these ram sticks on? If so do it one at a time and see if it sees it as 256mb ram.

What brand are these sticks? areyou 100% that they are each 256mb ram?

[abjr65ca]

Originally posted by gibsinep
Well your board says it supports 768mb ram so that isnt it, Do you have access to another machine you can try these ram sticks on? If so do it one at a time and see if it sees it as 256mb ram.

What brand are these sticks? areyou 100% that they are each 256mb ram?

They are "AZENRAM" bought at "Future Shop" (BestBuy). The packadge says 256mb ram PC133/100. It would be odd that all three different packadge would have the wrong RAM in it.
No, I cannot test on another system, but all the sticks were tested by themself in slot 1 and also read 128mb.
Thank you for your help, do you have anything else?
Is there anything I need to check in the "bios"?

[Midknyte]

The board may have a compatibility problem with the new high density chips. Are they rectangle or square chips on the ram? The older ram was rectangular, while the new stuff is more square.

If you tried them all individually, i think that rules out bad memory.

It could just be an incompatibility with a certain batch or manufacturer. I've seen some HPs that just didn't want to work with NEC chips, but they worked fine once we swapped them for Infineon chips.

[abjr65ca]

Originally posted by Midknyte
The board may have a compatibility problem with the new high density chips. Are they rectangle or square chips on the ram? The older ram was rectangular, while the new stuff is more square.

If you tried them all individually, i think that rules out bad memory.

It could just be an incompatibility with a certain batch or manufacturer. I've seen some HPs that just didn't want to work with NEC chips, but they worked fine once we swapped them for Infineon chips.

Rectangular. I use to have 3 - 128mb AZENRAM and they work ok.

[gibsinep]

I know this may sound stupid and I am not making fun or anything as I have done it before. You are sure you are putting the new 256 sticks and no the old 128mb sticks. Just double check. hey it's worth a shot.:)

[abjr65ca]

OK, when I removed the old ram, I moved it away from my workbench, and then I opened the new packadges.

[gibsinep]

OK, well I will have to do some more thinking then wont I.

[Peter M]

So much guessing, such a simple answer: Forget it. For two reasons.

(1) Intel BX doesn't support x4 SDRAM chips on non-registered DIMMs.
(2) Even with a BIOS that attempts to run these, you can't use a 256-MByte stick made from x4 SDRAM. The reason is that the i440BX has a 128 MByte per bank limit, and even though they look double sided, those 32x4 DIMMs use their 16 SDRAM chips to form one single bank of 256 MBytes. Hence, no go on BX.

The largest SDRAM chips supported are "16x8" technology, aka the "other" flavor of double sided 256-MByte DIMM.

regards, Peter

[gibsinep]

There you have it!

[abjr65ca]

Originally posted by Peter Missel
So much guessing, such a simple answer: Forget it. For two reasons.

(1) Intel BX doesn't support x4 SDRAM chips on non-registered DIMMs.
(2) Even with a BIOS that attempts to run these, you can't use a 256-MByte stick made from x4 SDRAM. The reason is that the i440BX has a 128 MByte per bank limit, and even though they look double sided, those 32x4 DIMMs use their 16 SDRAM chips to form one single bank of 256 MBytes. Hence, no go on BX.

The largest SDRAM chips supported are "16x8" technology, aka the "other" flavor of double sided 256-MByte DIMM.

regards, Peter

THIS IS THE BEST ANSWER I GOT SO FAR. Thank you very much Peter................Let's see if you can answer this one.
Is there a motherboard out there that would accept these stick of ram and my slot 1 CPU?