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system ignores half of RAM

809 views 3 replies 3 participants last post by  jinja 
#1 ·
This is a puzzling problem. I work in a lab where there have been several p166MMX/32MB installed. All of them work fine, but one appeared to have only 16MB of RAM, and thus ran W95b slower than most typewriters.

Today I was going to change the RAM over with one of the lesser used machines, but I was surprised to find that the SIMMs in each machine are exactly the same. Same configuration, same make, same location... exactly.

Having swapped the simms over with another PC, they work correctly as 2x16MB = 32MB. In this one machine, they (and others) only work as 16MB in whatever combination I use.

I have tried filling up all 4 simm slots (64MB) and then the system only seems 32MB of it. NO other problems are apparent to me, it is just that the PC does not recognise the extra RAM.

Any ideas?

J.
 
#2 ·
Have you gone into the CMOS Setup and enabled the added ram? If the added ram isn't enabled in the CMOS setup then Windows won't see it.
 
#3 ·
Most machines of that generation don't have CMOS settings for RAM, but it is certainly worth checking.

Most likely you have a bad SIMM socket on the motherboard, so it can't detect the RAM properly.
 
#4 ·
Thanks for the information guys... still to no avail. I checked on www.pcguide.com and found this:

"Watch out for 16 MB non-parity SIMMs that have chips on both sides of the SIMM (parity SIMMs usually do). Some of these are showing up on the market that are actually composite (even though 16 MB SIMMs aren't supposed to be) and some systems will only recognize them as being half of their true size. Ask for the SIMMs to be replaced with non-composite versions."

This description fits the bill entirely apart from the fact that the other computers in the lab appear to have the same chips/motherboard installed and work just fine.

I am inclined to accept Larrycore's version of events.

Thanks for the advice.

J.
 
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