512 ram only shows 256

  • Thread starter Thread starter cgidatabase
  • Start date Start date
C

cgidatabase

i have 3 slots on an award p3 motherboard, 2x256 sdram pc133
and 1 512 sdram pc133 but it only registers 768 megs of ram.
is there anything i can do to get it to register 1 gig of ram?
tim
 
i have 3 slots on an award p3 motherboard, 2x256 sdram pc133
and 1 512 sdram pc133 but it only registers 768 megs of ram.
is there anything i can do to get it to register 1 gig of ram?
Click to expand...

Probably not, as it appears the largest dimm your board can fully use is
256MB, and you're wasting half of that 512MB dimm.

That's extremely common behavior for P3 sdram boards, btw...

/daytripper
 
Ages ago I found on one motherboard that the order of ram insertion made a
difference.

Have you tried putting the 512 in the first slot by itself?

Does it register as 512 that way?

Does your motherboard recognise over 768mb ?
 
i have 3 slots on an award p3 motherboard, 2x256 sdram pc133
and 1 512 sdram pc133 but it only registers 768 megs of ram.
is there anything i can do to get it to register 1 gig of ram?
Click to expand...

In a word: No.

The problem is that the 512MB module is using memory that is newer and
of higher capacity than what the motherboard supports. 512MB modules
are usually built using either 8 chips of 512Mbit a piece or 16 chips
of 256Mbit a piece. Whichever it's using, that's twice as much as the
largest memory chip that your board can support (either case is
possible.. early PIII boards were limited to 128Mbit chips, late PIII
boards bumped that limit up to 256Mbit chips).

First thing that you should probably try is to update the BIOS. I'd
give this about a 1% shot of working, but it's free so you might as
well try it.

Otherwise, if the module happens to only use 8 memory chips, probably
all on one side, than it might be possible to exchange that module for
one using 16 chips (8 per side) and that might work. Beyond that,
you're SOL.


It's a bit late for this situation, but a hint for any future memory
purchases:

www.crucial.com

Enter in the motherboard you own and it will provide you with PROPER
memory for your board.
 
i have 3 slots on an award p3 motherboard, 2x256 sdram pc133
and 1 512 sdram pc133 but it only registers 768 megs of ram.
is there anything i can do to get it to register 1 gig of ram?
Click to expand...

Award is the BIOS original source - they don't make mbrds. If you can tell
which chipset you have -- for WinXX, look in Device Manager and if you see
440BX mentioned that would confirm the suspicion that your chipset cannot
handle a 512MB DIMM. Specifically the largest memory chip it can work with
is 128M-bits and 8 of those on each side of a DIMM would give 256MB.
 
Award is the BIOS original source - they don't make mbrds. If you can tell
which chipset you have -- for WinXX, look in Device Manager and if you see
440BX mentioned that would confirm the suspicion that your chipset cannot
handle a 512MB DIMM. Specifically the largest memory chip it can work with
is 128M-bits and 8 of those on each side of a DIMM would give 256MB.
Click to expand...

Same thing is true for ALI P3 chipsets, fwiw...
 
Back
Top