Need help bad with RAM settings

[henryzmad]

Hello all,
I am really struggling with this one.

I have a PCPartner motherboard (MB520NH) with a 430VX chipset. It has two 168pin DIMM sockets however it will not recognise any RAM sticks over 16Mb. Is there anyway I can fix this or is it inherent of the motherboard and unchangeable. I have read that the VX chipset supports up to 256Mb RAM.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Troy

[Peter M]

Intel 430VX cannot support SDRAM technology with a density above 16-MBit. This is a hardware limitation of that chipset (lack of memory bus address lines, to be exact), and cannot be resolved.

Now how do you determine what technology is used on your DIMM?

Count the SDRAM chips (the large ones). Round down to the nearest power of two (to eliminate extra chips on ECC DIMMs).

Multiply total DIMM capacity by eight, divide by number of chips as determined.

Example, a 128 MB DIMM with eight chips uses 128*8/8=128-MBit technology SDRAM chips.

A 32-MByte double sided ECC DIMM with 18 chips on (round down to 16) would be 32*8/16=16-MBit technology.

Regards, Peter

[M1pilot]

This is a shot in the dark, and Peter probably has the problem pegged, but I once had a Houston Tech (PCChips) m/b with the 430VX chipset and sort of the same problem. I had 32mb of SIMM memory on the board and it would only read 16mb......I disabled the "memory hole" function in the BIOS, and all was well. Just a thought.

-M1pilot

[henryzmad]

Thanks for the advice,
I was trying to install 64Mb sticks so I downsized to 2 times 32Mb which had 16 chips on them. This did the trick. You learn something new everyday.

Troy.
Help much appreciated....

[This message has been edited by henryzmad (edited 04-12-2000).]

[This message has been edited by henryzmad (edited 04-12-2000).]