Hello,

I plan to add more memory to my PC. How can I find out how much memory a motherboard can handle?

Thank you.

if you have the book that came with your MB it will tell you in there, else pop the case get the brand and model of your mb and go to the manufac's site to find out how much and what type it supports..

Badger

Hi Badger,

Thanks a lot for your help. It sounds fairly easy to do it your way, but just another question, is there anyway to find it locally? e.g. the BIOS or something?

I am pretty sure that the only way to do it is by looking up the motherboard or looking at the manual. You could look to see what bios chip you have, but that doesn't really determine how much RAM you can handle. You can also make a reasonable guess simply by knowing the age and speed of the CPU. If you have a 486 112MHz cpu, your RAM options are going to be pretty limited. If you have a P4 2.2MHz, you can probably handle at least a gig of RAM and so on...

Budfred

Thanks Budfred for the info. What I am actually trying to do is upgrading my computer from Win 98 to Win 2000 Pro. Now I have a Pentium 200 processor and 128 MB of RAM computer running kind of slow. Do you think it can handle 256 MB of RAM?

Chances are pretty good that it can, but 256 is running lean with Win2000Pro and it may slow down more. You might want to see if it can handle 512 by looking up the motherboard. I recently bought some 256 RAM for $25 after rebate, so you can pick it up pretty cheap these days. Chances are good that it can handle that much, but I wouldn't invest until I had checked to confirm.

Do you have any written material about your system or is it one of the big brands with a model number? Often you can find out details with the big brands even without opening the case. On the other hand, if it is a P200Mhz, it would probably be a good idea to open the case and give it a good cleaning if it hasn't had one lately.

Budfred

Pentium 200 processor and 128 MB of RAM

As for it running slow which are you running right now 98 or 2k?

Win2k will run slow on that processor, as it is toward the low-end of its minimum requirements.


Win2K Pro
CPU 133MHz or faster Pentium-compatible
RAM 64MB recommended 1
Hard disk 650MB of free space

Those are the MS required minimums




Win2k Pro
CPU 300MHz
RAM 256MB
Hard disk 2GB of free space

Those are a little more realistic minimums, but I think it would still appear sluggish on any thing under a 500MHz CPU.

What is running at startup?

Both program ans erveice (if you are running 2k already).

http://www.blackviper.com/ has a list (for both 2k and XP) of services that run by default but aren't really needed, shutting them off will go a long way to improving the performance and security of your machine (no matter what speed processor you have).

Other critical factors are amount of free space on your hard drive, what kind of video/sound/modem you have (if they are onboard or "soft" then they will impede pwrformansce, especially with a slower processor....)

And really, the only way to know how much memory your motherboard can handle is to lnow what brand/model it is and find the manual for it...there are certain Intel boards that have a major performance loss by adding more than a certain amount of memory.

Thank you, all, very much. I've already learned a lot from just one post like this. It is a so, so, so old no name computer - probably on its last leg, but I'll push it until it can't kick - no more. Another thing is that I don't have any manual, but I'll look up for the motherboard's info.

Mjc,
I'm running Win98 and planning to install Win 2000 Pro.

Thanks again!

If it is running slow with 98 you will think it is positively crawling with 2k....it is a much larger Operating System.

I have a Pentium 200 processor and 128 MB of RAM

You might need to check out the chipset. Many P-200 boards used the Intel i430xx chipset, xx being TX, FX, HX or VX. Those would only cache up to 64MB RAM, if you add more it will degrade performance seriously. Some will run about like 286 machines, some will just slow down a bit. Only the HX could cache more than 64MB, and then only with more "tag RAM" which is an add-on cacheing chip.

To find out you need the motherboard manual, or get the BIOS ID String, which can be found during the first boot screen if you press [Pause] to put the boot on hold so you can write it down. Then go to Wim's BIOS (http://www.wimsbios.com) and you can identify the board and possibly get specs or a manual. Specs or manual should tell you what chipset is used. If it turns out to be i430xx you can not only forget about more memory but drop it back to 64MB and get normal performance back.

I'm running win2000 on a P-II 375 at the shop, and it runs pretty good but it also has 256MB RAM in it. Win2000 should run on a P-200, but performance won't be great, unless you happen to have a chipset that will handle 256MB RAM or more. Even then, you might check into a CPU upgrade as well. Most P-200 (socket 7) boards won't support more than 233MHz, but many will also handle AMD K6-2 chips up to 450-500MHz if they will also handle MMX.