type of sdram for a 4 year old motherboard?

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Ping

My Dad has a computer running a PIII 850 with 128 MB of sdram and
Windows XP. Suffice to say it needs more memory. (It's slow)

I bought him a used PIII 1000 so that will boost the system speed up
to 133 from 100 mhz.

SO, I want to buy a 256 mb PC133 sdram stick. I notice there's two
types of chip densities being sold. One is the "32M x 64 -Bit" and the
other is the " 32x8"

For example Kingston says:

Manufacturer: Kingston
Speed: PC133
Type: 168 Pin SDRAM
Error Checking: Non-ECC
Registered/Unbuffered: Unbuffered
Cas Latency: 3
Support Voltage: 3.3V
Bandwidth: 1.05GB/s
Organization: 32M x 64 -Bit
Warranty: Lifetime
Please note this will not work with older Motherboards, only use with
boards supporting 32x8 Chipset

Is this an issue or not? Although I built the computer in question - I
think it used an ASUS cuv-4x mATX - I can't remember and I can't check
the board.

Anyway, it's the same vintage as the cuv-4x. I think it uses a VIA
chipset.

Do I have to worry about this 32Mx64 bit stuff or can I prolly just go
with the (much more widely availiable) 32M x 64 -Bit PC 133 sdram?

Thanks in advance,

Ping
 
My Dad has a computer running a PIII 850 with 128 MB of sdram and
Windows XP. Suffice to say it needs more memory. (It's slow)

I bought him a used PIII 1000 so that will boost the system speed up
to 133 from 100 mhz.

SO, I want to buy a 256 mb PC133 sdram stick. I notice there's two
types of chip densities being sold. One is the "32M x 64 -Bit" and the
other is the " 32x8"
Click to expand...

Nope - that's not quite what the description below really says. The 32Mx64
is the organization of the dimm: 64 bits wide times 32M gives a DIMM size
of 256MByte; the 32x8 should also be 32Mx8 and describes the size and
organization of the chips on the DIMM, i.e. 256Mbit.
For example Kingston says:

Manufacturer: Kingston
Speed: PC133
Type: 168 Pin SDRAM
Error Checking: Non-ECC
Registered/Unbuffered: Unbuffered
Cas Latency: 3
Support Voltage: 3.3V
Bandwidth: 1.05GB/s
Organization: 32M x 64 -Bit
Warranty: Lifetime
Please note this will not work with older Motherboards, only use with
boards supporting 32x8 Chipset
Click to expand...

What they're saying basically, is that this DIMM is a single sided 256MB
made from 8x256Mbit chips. The caution is against tryng to use it in a
mbrd with a chipset which does not support 256Mbit chips... in which case
you'd want a double sided DIMM with 16x128Mbit chips.
Is this an issue or not? Although I built the computer in question - I
think it used an ASUS cuv-4x mATX - I can't remember and I can't check
the board.

Anyway, it's the same vintage as the cuv-4x. I think it uses a VIA
chipset.

Do I have to worry about this 32Mx64 bit stuff or can I prolly just go
with the (much more widely availiable) 32M x 64 -Bit PC 133 sdram?
Click to expand...

If you have a mbrd which does not support the 32Mx8 memory chips you do not
want this DIMM - you need to know which mbrd you have and then just go to
www.crucial.com and follow the "directions".
 
Nope - that's not quite what the description below really says. The 32Mx64
is the organization of the dimm: 64 bits wide times 32M gives a DIMM size
of 256MByte; the 32x8 should also be 32Mx8 and describes the size and
organization of the chips on the DIMM, i.e. 256Mbit.


What they're saying basically, is that this DIMM is a single sided 256MB
made from 8x256Mbit chips. The caution is against tryng to use it in a
mbrd with a chipset which does not support 256Mbit chips... in which case
you'd want a double sided DIMM with 16x128Mbit chips.


If you have a mbrd which does not support the 32Mx8 memory chips you do not
want this DIMM - you need to know which mbrd you have and then just go to
www.crucial.com and follow the "directions".
Click to expand...

--------------------
Thanks for the replies.

Just out of curiosity, can the double side, single side, issue be made
irrelevant by buying two 128 MB PC 133 sticks?

Thanks again in advance.

Ping (original poster)
 
--------------------
Thanks for the replies.

Just out of curiosity, can the double side, single side, issue be made
irrelevant by buying two 128 MB PC 133 sticks?
Click to expand...

As long as the single sided DIMM has 8 x 128Mbit chips on it - it could be
possible that you'd find a 128MB DIMM with 4 x 256Mbit chips. 128Mbit
chips are at the tail-end of their life-cycle and price *could* be starting
to ramp up now.
 
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