ram problems

[mulder]

Somebody help!!
I recently purchased 256mb of sd ram pc133 and inserted it into my dimm slot only to find out that it is registering as 128mb only. I rang my supplier who told me that the ram is definately 256mb and that it was probably a fault with my motherboard. He told me that there is a compatibiliy issue with some older motherboards and ram that is chipped on one side. does anyone know if that is true or is he pulling the wool over my eyes? I'm running celeron 500 on a QDI Advance 9 motherboard.

[malcore]

Is your NEW ram double sided? Are there memory chips on both sides I mean. It's true that some motherboards will only recognize half of a double sided ram module.

[mulder]

yeah my new ram is one sided why should that make a difference?

[Budfred]

"yeah my new ram is one sided why should that make a difference?"

Because: "It's true that some motherboards will only recognize half of a double sided ram module." Malcore by proxy...

Budfred

[mulder]

well if that's the case how do you know when you are buying ram if it is one sided or not most of the sites I've been to don't specify this.

[Budfred]

You don't need to worry about the RAM unless you have a motherboard that only uses one-sided RAM. Since the RAM you have is one-sided anyway, it probably isn't the problem. You can find out from the motherboard maker whether there are any restrictions on the type of RAM it will use. It seems that it is mostly older boards that require it. I believe you can tell if it is one-sided when it has chips on only one side, if you can't see it, you would need to ask before ordering.;)

Budfred

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Is this the puppy? Click on it.
http://www.motherboard.cz/mb/qdi/Advance%209.jpg

(link edited for content reasons)

This link (http://www.sysopt.com/userreviews/mboards/reviewhtml/QDI_Advance_9.html) has less than desirable reviews of it. But it should have been able to handle the amount RAM you bought so it would seem something is either incompatable or defective.

[aussieolie2]

Hmmmm.... I recon you may need to update your motherboard driver, also (as you know) I had the problem (PNY Tech) and reintstalled windows (as I had to anyway) and basically I have had no were near as many crashes etc..runnning it - as when I first put it in the PC went ape in windoze.
Im going to try and find a driver for my motherboard as I recon its that.
Just by any chance you didnt buy PNY 256Mb PC133 and have an AMD board & chip (thats me),

Im working on this,

Olie

[mulder]

Thanks for the help guys! today I tried my ram in my mates gigabite motherboard it works fine he gave me his double sided 256ram guess what it works on my QDI board.It's about time I upgraded my motherboard me thinks!! can anyone recommend a good motherboard to go with a duron 1300, i was looking at elite K7 but i've heard bad things about that one.

[Paleo Pete]

I think the problem was density. newer RAM is often a higher density than older chips, many older boards will only read half of it, same as with double sided chips. In many cases the computer won't boot at all with higher density RAM than the board/chipset supports. With the single/double sided issue the computer will boot and run perfect, but only read half the amount of RAM installed.