70ns Simms with a pentium

[araaraara]

At school we're trying to get two pentium systems working. One is an IBM with a p133 and the other is a generic with a cyrix 6x86 100mhz pr120. Neither system wants to run windows. They both load the splash screen and then hang there forever. On the cyrix, it has come up with an error a few times, saying that the system was either low on memory or that a file in iosubsys is corrupt. They each had 64mb of 70ns IBM ram. I have hear that slower pentiums like the 60,66 and 75 can use 70ns ram, but for faster cpus you need 60ns ram. Is that correct? My old p75 had 60ns EDO.

[Bovon]

The older boards that ran at up to maybe 66 or even 75 mhz, could use any of the SIMMs that were as high as 80 ns, down to 60 ns. If there was ever anything faster than 60 ns, I have not run across it. Some motherboards did have proprietary ram tho...and even tho it would fit the SIMM socket, it wouldn't work. I don't know if IBM boards were like that or not.

[LJE2]

In most cases 70ns RAM should be fine, what version of Windows are you trying to run, anything newer than Windows 95, probably wont work on that system. Your not trying to overclock these systems are you? That kind of error is common with an overclocked system, for the Cyrix you should be set at 3x 33MHz and for the IBM with the Intel P133 you should be set at 4x 33MHz.

[prexaspes]

I have seen 55ns SIMM, for the record.

Never heard of proprietary ram for the pentium.

What I can tell ya:
Make sure it's Fast page mode (FPM) or extended data out (EDO) and it's working with like ram and it's turned on in bios.
Check the parity on that. Do the motherboards use parity? Do you have parity ram? They probably aren't ECC sticks, nor would you need them. Try to make sure they're all 70ns pieces.

Oh, and good luck!

[korgul]

On the cyrix make sure you have enough cooling power. They are known to run very hot.

I used to have a Cyrix and adtually had to have a regular personal fan blowing on the inside of the case to keep it from hanging.

Korgul

[araaraara]

It's working now. My teacher did something to it after school on friday. It's kind of slow cause it's running win98. Not a bad system though, 540mb + 1.6gig harddrives, 64mb of ram, p120+ cpu. It'll be fine on my desk after a little tweakin.