Only Half of RAM Ammount Displayed?

[FZWG]

Only Half of RAM Amount Displayed?

Appreciate some assistance.

PC has 256MB RAM (2 memory chips: 128MB on DiMM 1, 128MB on DiMM 2), and can hold up to 1GB RAM over its 3 DiMM slots, according to mainboard specs.

Installed a third memory chip with 256MB RAM on DiMM 3, and for some reason, it was not recognized. Proceeded to remove it, and now the 256MB RAM that were already in DiMMs 1 & 2 are showing up as a total of 128MB RAM.

The mainboard appears to only recognize half of the RAM installed!

Switched the chips around to different DiMM slots, but nothing happened.

(PC has an AZZA 5VMX VIA MVP3 ATX mainboard, an AWARD BIOS, AMD K6-2/550 CPU, and OS = W98SE. Mainboard manual allows for single or double sided memory, EDO or SDRAM.)

Any ideas on how to correct this issue?

[Bovon]

What speed is the new ram??..EDO? or is it newer PC100 or 133?

Older mainboards that were designed to use EDO may (or may not) run newer and faster ram.

When installing ram modules, I read where the largest ram module should be placed in slot 1 (or slot 0, depending on the mobo terminalogy). You are aware I'm sure that DIMM ram modules are very hard to get seated properly?...if they are not bottomed out in the sockets, quite often they are not recognized, or cause a failure.

[Dave_Whittle]

I've had of this problem alot of newer boards won't accept the ddr sockets fully complimented with the same amount of ram in each socket. I ended up having to put 256,256,512 in my board to get it running (Gigabyte GA7-VTX) :)

[FZWG]

Thank you for your replies.

RAM chip is pushed in, tight!!

All the chips are PC-100 (gold).

The 256MB chip by itself shows up as 128MB.

RAM size is not locked in on msconfig.

Three days ago, the two 128MB chips were showing as 256MB. Now they show up as half of that!!!

Cleared the CMOS, same thing happened all over again.


Any other words of wisdom??

[frank5]

Seems like one or two of your dimm sockets is not making a good connection. You said that dimm#3 doesn't register your 256 stick. What happens when you fill only dimm#1.Try this with the 128 and 256 sticks. What happens when you add the next stick into dimm#2. I suggest that you clean off the ram sticks with some alcohol to get any dirt or grease off them and also to blow out the dust from your dimm sockets with pressurized air. Sounds like a conection problem to me. (Probably with dimm#2 &dimm#3)

[FZWG]

Thank you for your reply.

Tried every possible suggestion, and still it is no-go. Also found an "issue" in the mainboard's website. It appears that there is trouble on the horizon if you try to install any DiMM over 64MB.

After reading the "issue", decided to get rid of the mainboard.:)