Identifying SIMMs

[Alexander]

I have an old system that I’m trying to upgrade. It has a #7 slot for a 100MHZ Pentium. I would like to replace the memory chips but I don’t quite know what to replace them with. I am almost certain that I have SIMMs installed. Does anyone know how I can find out the width and depth of my memory chips? Looking at them does not help.

Thanks,

Alex

[live4spd]

Well I'm not exactly sure what you are getting at but let me take a stab.

Pretty much all P100's back in the day will take 72P SIMMS. You can get them in either FPM or EDO. EDO is generally quicker and preferred.

I'm quite sure you don't want parity ram so your chip type would be 8x64. (32MB 64Bit SIMM) Keep in mind you will need to upgrade in pairs. I would shoot for 128MB of RAM

Ryan

[Alexander]

Thanks Ryan,

I guess I should get 128MB or RAM.

I'm wondering if there is some utility or diognostic tool that I could use to tell me the stats on SIMMs.

[Bovon]

Go to this site and download the free version of SiSoft Sandra and install it. Then, run the mainboard information. It will tell you the size, make and data on the ram installed.
http://www.sisoftware.demon.co.uk/sandra/

[Brian48]

Sisoft may not be able to get you all the info you need. The best way, of course, is to look up the serial numbers from the memory modules on the manufacturer's site. If you feel like doing some research, scroll down to the RAM section of this site (http://home.earthlink.net/~chinmonster/links/index_links.htm)

[Alexander]

Thanks for your help with this one folks. I appreciate it.

Alex

[Bovon]

Okedoke...I don't know how much info can be obtained other than finding the data off of the module itself, and tracking it down at the factory site. But, here is what SiSoft Sandra will tell you about the modules that you have installed.

http://webpages.cablevision-online.net/k4yaw/ram.jpg

[cedar2]

Before you get too far towards the memory store, you better check which chipset you are using. If I interpret you correctly, you have a Pentium 100 (as opposed to a 100MHz FSB Pentium), and only a few of the chipsets that came with this level board can utilize more than 64 MB of ram effectively, those being the I430LX, NX and HX. The rest are limited by the amount of memory that can be cached, that limit being 64MB. Installing more memory than that will slow your machine down because Windows loads high in memory and would therefore be out of the cacheable range effectively disabling your L1 and L2 caches.