Upgrade not working

[JohnE]

Hello everyone, This is driving me nuts so here goes.

 

This is the result of a scan on my computer....

 

256 MB

SDRAM, PC133

256 MB

SDRAM, PC133

EMPTY

 

256 MB SDRAM, PC133 256 MB SDRAM, PC133 EMPTY

Maximum Memory Capacity: 262144 MB

Currently Installed Memory: 512 MB

Available Memory Slots: 1

Number of Banks: 3

Dual Channel Support: N.A.

CPU Manufacturer: GenuineIntel

CPU Family: Intel® Pentium® 4 CPU 1700MHz Model 0, Stepping 10

CPU Speed: 1693 MHz

 

Its running XP Pro and is working very slowly so a ram upgrade seemed appropriate. Upon investigation there were two different 256meg manufacturers memory in two of the three slots. I purchased a single 512meg upgrade from Orca....

512MB Module

Orca Part Code: 64MLS64V6F-B49 standard 168-Pin DIMM PC133 (133MHz) ( RAM )

 

I now had over 1g of RAM but the PC would not boot, or at least it did eventually but very slowly, took out the old stuff and bingo on it came, took out the new stuff and replaced it with the old and bingo again. I rang Orca and we decided that another matching 512meg lump would solve the problem. That arrived, put it in and nothing, well eventually it booted but slowly. Took out the first 512meg upgrade and bingo, took out the second 512meg upgrade and bingo again. So individually they work but together or as soon as it goes above 512meg then nothing. I have checked on the motherboard manufacturers site and this is what it says.....

 

PlatiniX series PlatiniX 2

Chipset

Intel 845 Chipset

North Bridge: Intel 845(MCH)

South Bridge: Intel 82801BA (ICH2)

Slots

6 PCI slots, 1 CNR, 1 AGP

CPU

Support Socket 478 processors

Intel Pentium 4 processors(Willamette) at 1.6/1.7/1.8/1.9/2.0GHz

Intel Pentium 4 processors(Northwood) 1.6A/1.8A/2.0A/2.2/2.4/2.5/2.6 GHz

Intel Celeron processors at 1.6/1.7/1.8/1.9

System Memory

Provide 3 168-Pin DIMM slots

Support PC-133 SDRAM Up to 3GB

Bus Speed

400 MHz FSB

BIOS

2 Mbit firmware Hub

Licensed advanced Award (phenix) BIOS

Support Plug and Play

Support ACPI and OS directed power management

 

Storage system

Two PCI Master IDE ports support up to 4 IDE devices

Support ATA 33/66/100

One Floppy port support up to two 3.5¡± or 5.25¡± floppy drives

(360K/720K/1.2M/1.44M/2.88M)

Support LS-120 floppy disk drive and ZIP drive

I/O Feature

2 high speed Serial Ports (16550 Fast UART Compatible)

1 Enhanced Parallel Port support EPP/ECP/SPP

4 USB support USB1.1(2 USB on back panel, 2 USB on front header with optional cable)

1 PS/2 keyboard port

1 PS/2 mouse port

1 Speaker+ 1 Line in+ 1 Mic(Optional)

1 Game port(Optional)

IrDA port support up to 115.2Kb/s transfer rate

All I/O ports can be enabled/disabled by BIOS setup

AGP 4X Slot

Provides AGP 4X interface

Support AGP 2.0

Transfer rate up to 1GB/sec

Onboard Audio

(Optional)

AC' 97 2.1 Compliant

16-bit Stereo Codec

Upgradable to six channels audio with CNR card

Advanced Feature

PCI 2.2 Specification compliant

Support Window 98/2000/ME soft-off

Wakeup on LAN

Wake up on Modem

Power-on by keyboard password

Trend ChipAway Virus on Guard

QDI Innovative Technology

BootEasy,RecoveryEasy, SpeedEasy, BIOS-ProtectEasy, ManageEasy,LogoEasy,

StepEasy

Power management

Support ACPI(Advance configration and power interface) and ODPM(OS Directed Power Management)

CPU temperature, System temperature, CPU fan speed,

Chassis fan speed, 8 System Voltages

Power Management

ACPI v1.0 and APM Compliant

Support S0(full-on),S1(power on suspend),S3(suspend to RAM),S5(soft-off) ACPI power status

LAN(Optional)

Onboard 10/100 Mbps LAN Inferface

Board Size

ATX: 305 x 224mm

 

 

I dont know the serial number of the board so unless someone can tell me where to find it this is all that I have in terms of info. Is it possible that the board will only take 512meg? The scan says otherwise so what is wrong/'

[RandyL]

Hi john;

Thanks for all the information.

 

It seems everything is supported and you did say that by themselves each stick works just fine.

 

Have you tried using just one stick in slot one? Then in slot 2? Then in slot 3?

[JohnE]

Many thanks for the reply. No I havent done that yet. Slot 3 has never been used but as the scan says, I think, both original modules were in slots 1 and 2. I will try the alternatives and let you all know the outcome. Would you expect the mother board to be capable of handling the extra 512meg module and are there any other more technical things that need to be done. I read somewhere something about voltages and things within BIOS and god knows what else, all of it straight over my head.:rolleyes:

 

Nebraska, my word what time is it there and I'll bet its bloody cold:D

[RandyL]

John the techs and members will look at this but it does appear you can handle up to 3GB. Likely the max is 1GB per slot but I would wait for them to confirm that.

 

In the mean time it wouldn't hurt to check that out as it might just be a case of a bad slot.

 

Almost 5:00 am here John. Actually it's been pretty warm here lately. 15 degrees Fahrenheit or -9.4 Celsius. I can't complain. lol

[JohnE]

Thanks for the update, cant you sleep or are you working nights:D

[Tootech]

Hi John,

 

It may be that your memory can only be installed in certain configurations. Looking around I've assumed your board is a QDI. Could do with the model number - and the manual.

 

I had a look on the QDI site for PlatiniX 2 and there are 3 boards listed - and that's only guesswork

 

QDI Support

 

Without any more info I'm kinda stuck - do you think you can narrow it down to a specific board?

[JohnE]

I ran something else last night and this is it. In addition I found the manual but it looks as though they have grouped the boards together. I agree it does look as though they will all take more memory than I am trying to install so does that mean that something is broken.:D

 

Operating System System Model

Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 3 (build 2600) Enclosure Type: Desktop

Processor a Main Circuit Board b

1.70 gigahertz Intel Pentium 4

8 kilobyte primary memory cache

256 kilobyte secondary memory cache Board: Legend QDI PLATINIX-2 V1.XXBus Clock: 100 megahertz

BIOS: Award Software International, Inc. 6.00 PG 08/27/2001

Drives Memory Modules c,d

120.02 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity

76.41 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

 

SAMSUNG CDRW/DVD SM-352B [CD-ROM drive]

3.5" format removeable media [Floppy drive]

 

WDC WD1200JB-00GVA0 [Hard drive] (120.03 GB) -- drive 0, s/n WD-WCALA1647667, rev 08.02D08, SMART Status: Healthy 512 Megabytes Installed Memory

 

Slot 'A0' has 256 MB

Slot 'A1' is Empty

Slot 'A2' has 256 MB

Local Drive Volumes

 

c: (NTFS on drive 0) 120.02 GB 76.41 GB free

 

Network Drives

None detected

Users (mouse over user name for details) Printers

local user accounts last logon

Matt 18/02/2009 18:52:18

Pauline 18/02/2009 21:25:39 (admin)

Rachael 17/02/2009 21:35:11 (admin)

user 19/02/2009 17:15:47 (admin)

local system accounts

Administrator never (admin)

ASPNET never

Guest never

HelpAssistant never

SUPPORT_388945a0 never

 

 

Marks a disabled account; Marks a locked account HP DeskJet 840C/841C/842C/843C on LPT1:

 

Controllers Display

Standard floppy disk controller

Intel® 82801BA Ultra ATA Storage Controller - 244B

Primary IDE Channel [Controller]

Secondary IDE Channel [Controller] NVIDIA GeForce 6200 [Display adapter]

Samsung SyncMaster [Monitor] (17.1"vis, s/n HJDW200713, February 2003)

Bus Adapters Multimedia

Intel® 82801BA/BAM USB Universal Host Controller - 2442

Intel® 82801BA/BAM USB Universal Host Controller - 2444

NEC PCI to USB Open Host Controller (2x)

Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller Intel® 82801BA/BAM AC'97 Audio Controller

MPU-401 Compatible MIDI Device

Standard Game Port

Communications Other Devices

Motorola SM56 Speakerphone Modem

 

 

1394 Net Adapter

NETGEAR GA311 Gigabit Adapter

Dhcp Server: 192.168.1.1

Physical Address: 00:14:6C:CB:3F:7D

NETGEAR WG111T 108Mbps Wireless USB2.0 Adapter #2

primary Auto IP Address: 192.168.0.2 / 24

Gateway: 192.168.0.1

Dhcp Server: 192.168.0.1

Physical Address: 00:14:6C:ED:66:10

 

Networking Dns Server: 192.168.0.1

VIA OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller

Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard

Microsoft USB Wheel Mouse Optical

USB Root Hub (5x)

Virus Protection [back to Top]

F-Secure Client Security 7.10 Version 7.10

[Dalo Harkin]

Have you looked to see if there are any MOBO updates - it does sound like the MOBO is setting the RAM speed lower than it is capable of - are you comfortable looking in the BIOS and reporting the settings of the RAM?

[JohnE]

I really appreciate all of this help. I dont mind having a look in the BIOS if there is some guidance. Providing I dont change anything then I guess its ok. I understand that updating the board could turn it into junk so I'll just look and not adjust anything. Can you remind me what keys I press to enter the settings screen.

[BeeCeeBee]

For me it is F2 but it should say when you boot. The trick to looking in the bios is that even if you think you have done nothing, when you exit make sure you don't allow changes.

[JohnE]

well I've been into the bios screen, its a whole new world in there and all of it goes straight over my head other than boot sequences.

 

I went into the screens that indicated anything to do with memory and this is what i found.

 

CPU clock ratio 8

cpu host/pci clock default

OS select for DRAM > 64MB Non-OS2

Base memory 640K

Extended memory 523264K

Total memory 524288K

DRAM timing selectable By SPD

DRAM RAS# to CAS# Delay 3

DRAM RAS# precharge 3

DRAM Dat integrity mode Non-ECC

 

 

I'm sure that there is a lot more but is this of any use:confused: