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Incomplete SDRAM DIMM initialization!

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by eansor

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I am attempting to upgrade an older 66 MHz bus motherboard with 128MB PC66 SDRAM DIMM. NVRAM initialization during BIOS screen only recognizes 32MB. Book says board is upgradable to 128MB DIMM with SDRAM. Jumpers seem to be set right (3.3V). CMOSseems to be set right also. No option for bus speed settings in CMOS. Got any ideas? Send email to eansor@concentric.net Thanks!

11 replies

by sluggo210672

Are you trying to upgrade your RAM from one 32 MB chip to a single 128MB RAM chip. If so, maybe that could be your problem. Does the motherboard have 4 memory slots. This would indicate, to me anyway that the board can only recognise 32MB chips, giving you a total of 128.

Being an older style motherboard, this could possibly be the problem.

What happens if you leave the 32 MB chip in and also put in the 128MB chip. Does it only recognise the 32 MB chip or do you get 64. If you get 64, itmay confirm my suspicions.

Best of luck.

by eansor

Sluggo-

Thanks for your reply. This older motherboard has 4 EDO type memory slots and 1 DIMM type memory slot. There were originally 4 x 16MB EDO modules for a total of 64MB in the machine. I could go get 4 x 32MB EDO modules to get up to the 128MB goal, but I thought it would be easier and cheeper to just get the one 128 DIMM SDRAM. It was cheep!

by dmiles

First,try flashing the BIOS to update,then look at the CMOS control panel and highlight the memory line and change,it may be set to only recognize a 32M limit,this can be done by clicking and selecting from the drop down list.Hope this helps

by eansor

Soulrider-

Thanks to you too, my man. You are a high point leader! Good job!

I have never tried to flash a bios and am reluctant to do so now. It should be pretty straight forward, but...if I fail a perfectly good computer goes bye bye.

Where particularly in the CMOS would one find a line that refers to the amount of memory that should be recognized? I found a line that seemed to speak to access time (ie..60ns or 70ns), but nothing about quantity.

Thanks again.

Gary

by dmiles

What operating system do you have on the machine earlier versions of Win95 was limited to 32m,yet would use more memory in upper memory block,check microsoft knowledgebase for ref.
To change memory limit,go to Start>Run,type MSCONFIG and select theGeneral tab,click on advanced and you will see the block to change memory limit.
I did fail to mention the flashing the BIOS risks and it seems as though you are aware of those risk.Good luck.

by eansor

Soulrider-

We're running Win98SE. I will check out the msconfig utility though. It's one of my favorites and I use it often. Advanced Troubleshooting Settings! Well, I'll be damned. I've never looked at that tab. Thank you, Soul. If it works I'll give you the credit.

Gary

by kgosnell

Have someone show you how to reset away from the "Hole" , it is set to 16 or 32, and will not recognise any more than that amount until it's disabled.
Hope this is the problem rather than a bad stick of ram, luck

by eansor

Gosnell-

Interesting approach. I'd like to know more about this memory hole you refer to...I've seen it in the CMOS, but never had any idea what it refers to. Care to elaborate?

Gary

by kgosnell

I only know what my tech told me when I could not get my machine to see the full amount of ram, though I can't recall all the steps he had me go through to get to it, it sets the limit the machine can use manually, no matter how much is on the board, as I stated , it limits the Ram, as far as all the specs go I don't recall, and it's something only a tech most times comes across in setting up systems for others , I think it has something to do with assigning ram to other tasks in some way, but it would look as though it could be simply unchecked to resolve it, but some things that look simple are not what they appear, if you can recover, try it, if you can't I suggest call a tech , way back ,then I used to set the parameters for the bios in the old stuff, but it's been a long time and I would be lost now, but I know that hole is NOT supposed to be operational on normal machines, only specialized stuff, and it's old technology. Hope you can sort this hobbled explaination, as it happened to me but I simply can't recall the steps, sorry

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