RAM Questions

ID:188820
 
Dec 28 2003, 4:21 pm
So I have 3 sticks of RAM. 64, 128, 256. The 256 is called SDRAM, I'm not sure if the others are the same type or not, as I don't know too much about hardware. Now, for a long time I was running with both the 64 and the 128 in my computer, working fine, coming out at something like 196 with the extended RAM, or something around there. I decided I would pull this 256 out of my parents computer (not working at the moment) and put it in mine. No sense letting good ram go to waste. However, I hooked it all up, and noticed two things.

First, it's unusually hard to snap the ram into place. Is this normal? Not only are the slots in an extremely out-of-the-way location, but it's just hard to snap them in. It requires enough force I'm almost worried about breaking something.

Second, the ram isn't working.
Old setup
---- empty
---- 128
---- 64

New setup
---- 256
---- 128
---- 64

They appear to be snapped in fine, however it's only reading 131 megs of ram, only the 128 bar. Is there a ram limitation of some sort on the motherboard itself? It can only support so much without having problems? Or is this simply the ram being either incompatible (referring to the 256) or not snapped in well enough? My computer is about 6 years old. 433 mhz, fairly good for it's time. I'm not sure if an old computer would support this 256 "SDRAM" chip, if it's in a special new format or something like that. Any ideas?


~Polatrite~
Dec 28 2003, 4:58 pm (Edited on Dec 28 2003, 5:04 pm)
The speed of the ram is important, my old p3 450 mhz uses PC100 SDRAM, or about the slowest stuff you can buy currently, its so slow it costs more than some of the faster stuff. What you need to do is find out what kind of ram you stuck into youd computer(the 256)then find out what kind of ram your computer needs, try http://www.crucial.com to figure it out, it goes by type of computer, and you should be able to figure it out from there. Thats about all I know on the subject, someone please correct me if im wrong, or feel free to add on to it.



EDIT: In fact, I just checked the price on the same memory I bought for mine somewhere around 1-2 years ago, its almost doubled in price for a 128mb stick of PC100 SDRAM. I payed 50 for two 128's, its now 40 for one.
Dec 28 2003, 5:08 pm
In response to Jotdaniel
Also some motherboards do have a max limit of the size of ram that can go in a slot.
Dec 28 2003, 8:42 pm
You really need to know the speed and type of the old RAM. Are there any model numbers or anything on the older sticks of RAM? Do a Google search on anything you find printed on them and see what comes up.

Hopefully they're a similar type and speed; depending on the motherboard, using different types and speeds of RAM together can be verrrry tricky.
Dec 29 2003, 6:52 am
In response to Jon88
And a max limit of all together. But I doubt that 256+128+64 (448) would be the maximum. Most of the older computers have a maximum of 512MB.