Old systems, empty RAM slots.

[pave_spectre]

I have an old system (Dual P90) that has four EDO RAM slots free(8 total plus two 72 pin slots). I also have probably between 50 and 100 sticks of RAM.
I have tried inserting a number of sticks of ram in the free slots but it refuses to see anymore RAM than is currently installed (either 16Meg or 32 I have two old machines and I cant remember which has which amount of RAM). I did once manage to get it to see only 800k of RAM by reducing it to 2 sticks (Yes - 800k - not a typo).

I think some of the RAM is good since I replaced one of the sticks and and it stayed exactly as it was which I presume meant I replaced one stick with another that was the same.
Does anyone know of any way other than trial and error that I can determine which sticks are good (and maybe what size they are) so that I can possibly max out the RAM and use it as a web server and for miscelaneous testing purposes. I can probably find time for trial and error but with as many RAM sticks as I have it could take me a while. I havent found anything about RAM limits or configuration in the manual yet so Im hoping thats not a problem.

Ideas are most welcome.

[classicsoftware]

Go to your local computer shop and ask them to if they have a RAM tester and if they do, could they test the RAM for you.

[pave_spectre]

Not an option unfortunately as all the comp stores here are run by a**holes who give extremely poor service. If they even have that equipment they will be unlikely to do it for free and its not so crucial that Im willing to pay for it.

[BigBlue66]

It's good that you have lots of time for T&E, 'cause I don't see any other way of doing it.

On a system that old, you will have to enter CMOS Setup on the first boot after installing more RAM. Don't actually change any settings though. Simply choose to Save and Exit. The system won't recognize the additional RAM until you do that.

[mjc]

Also a number of those older boards had some amount of RAM built onto the mainboard, so even if you remove ALL the RAM you would still have some and it should still POST....(had a PB that did that to me, drove me nuts trying to figure out what was going on).

[miles_obrien]

And then there is sometimes a rider on the amount of RAM in that you can use one bank or the other ie the 72 or the 32 but not both. So if you filled the 8 slots you would not be able to use the longer 2 slots, if I understand what you were saying.
Mike

[Budfred]

There is also an issue of parity and nonparity RAM with EDO and the motherboard may not be able to handle more than 64Mb....

[Paleo Pete]

And to add to all that...Just what you didn't want to find out, I know..

Some older boards will not handle double sided RAM, or chips larger than a certain size -16 or 32MB or whatever- (did someone already point that out?) and with dual CPU it's probably intended to be a server board so it might only handle parity RAM.

To use the dual CPU you'll have to go with an NT or Linux based OS, win9x won't support dual CPU. That means NT 4 or Linux, don't even think about Win2000 or XP...it wouldn't even boot with either.

And...you won't be able to use a hard drive larger than 8GB, possibly 2GB, depending on the OS you use and the file system, FAT 16 or FAT 32...and doesn't have enough CPU power to handle a winmodem, which means a hard to find hardware one.

This is not to say it's not a useful machine, if you can get RAM that works and a good modem, decent sized hard drive or two of them, it should do fairly well for what you want to do with it. A web server doesn't have to be a shiny new blazing fast machine, just functional and reliable and with a modem that will not limit visitors to 14,400 throughput...

I don't mean to discourage you, just let you know what the limitations of a P-90 are...I would pull the 30 pin EDO and try to get some 72 pin RAM working, two slots will total more than the 8 EDO slots and should be faster.

72 pin SIMM has to be used in pairs, one stick won't do it for the OS, but with one it should boot up to a boot floppy or at least give you a picture, to test and see if an individual stick works at all.

Most of what has been suggested so far is correct, you'll need to go into BIOS, save changes and exit (in most cases) to get the board to see the RAM, most boards with both types of RAM slots can only use one type at a time, (30 or 72 pin, not both,) parity/non-parity might be an issue, and I'd almost bet it will not use more than 64MB...

Check the IC chips for an Intel 82430xx, the xx being TX, FX, HX or VX. That's the Intel 430 chipset that will not cache more than 64MB. If the 72 pin slots haven't been used in a while you might have to reseat the memory a dozen times before you clean up the contacts and get it to see the memory at all.

Have fun (I'd love to get my hands on that thing just to tinker with it...)

Oh, almost forgot, check the jumpers closely, it might have a jumper to tell it which memory slots are in use.

[pave_spectre]

Well then it looks like wednesdays, fridays and parts of the weekends will be spent trying to juggle RAM testing and studying for CCNA.

If its not one thing its the other.

It does have jumpers for selecting which of the 72pin and 30 pin slots are used and wont take both types This much I already knew. This board seems to have jumpers for everything. Prior to this I had forgotten just how reliant you have to be on the manual to find anything to modify settings.
But I only have two sticks of 72 pin that I know for sure dont work. A friend is selling a couple of old machines that I may be able to strip for some parts.
It wont need a modem as I will only be using it on a LAN for testing web server configurations and to aid in developing my own web pages plus learning linux/unix. But I do have an external 33.6 modem that just needs a serial cable and a power adapter.
I was planning on using either linux (havent decided which distro since I have about 6) or possibly freeBSD running apache and maybe sometype of FTP for practice.
The P90 sytem has a BIOS limit of about 800MB for hard drive. The 133 I have can go up to 2 gig but is messed up in other ways.


So hopefully in a couple of weeks I may have a progress report on just how frustrated I am with this thing and asking if I can borrow anyones shotgun.

[mjc]

Go with the BSD/Apache combo.....that way you will be mimicing a very common web setup.

Also 72pin can be found quite often on ebay in lots, most of the lots I've seen go for between $5 and $15 for a number of sticks, usually unkown sizes.

Crucial still has 72 pin in 16 and 32 MB sizes for $25 and $41 respectively.....

Micron also still makes and sells it.

[pave_spectre]

My problem with trying to buy it new is I would prefer to deal with a local reseller, which means I would need to find one willing to do a one off EDO sale plus the cost that would incur(all the stores here charge ridiculous prices) and inconvenience albeit minor , of waiting for it to arrive, so my best bet may be to use Ebay and the local second-hand sales papers.

EDIT

This is what Micron say about 72 pin edo

EDO/FPM devices are obsolete. Please refer to the SDRAM or DDR sections for information regarding Micron's synchronous DRAM family for new designs.

[pave_spectre]

Somehow I managed to mix up the manuals for the Dual board and the single (dont know how since they look totally different ).
The P90 does not have 30 pin slots it only has 3 banks of 72 pin, 2 of which are used for a total of 32 meg, and according to the Manual the current configuration will only allow another 2 sticks of 8 meg 70ns each for a total of 48.

Unfortunately it now appears the video card is dead, and the PS fan is now making more noise than an angle grinder, so it looks like I may have to go parts scrounging to get it up and running.

[sleddog]

Originally posted by pave_spectre
... I will only be using it on a LAN for testing web server configurations and to aid in developing my own web pages...I was planning on using either linux (havent decided which distro since I have about 6) or possibly freeBSD running apache and maybe sometype of FTP for practice.
The P90 sytem has a BIOS limit of about 800MB for hard drive. The 133 I have can go up to 2 gig but is messed up in other ways.

The BIOS limit only applies to the first drive -- from which Linux will boot. Secondary drives can be any size, well in excess of the BIOS limit, as Linux will access these devices directly and not rely on the BIOS for information. So really you just need a small drive as the primary, containing the /boot partition, which the BIOS can recognize. Everything else can reside on a much larger secondary drive.

If you will be developing with server-sided scripting (e.g., perl or php) you'll want to get every ounce of processor power and as much RAM you can. The P133 would provide a noticeable performance boost over the P90 for compiling server-sided scripts.

Edit - Sorry pave, I missed the fact that the P90 is a dual processor. That certainly would affect performance as a webserver. If you can get 48mb RAM functioning in that machine it should perform quite nicely, provided you don't install a GUI. Once it's installed and up, you can install sshd and administer it from your Windows box using an ssh client like PuTTY.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Where do you get 48megs as max?

On page 14-15 the manual you linked to states a max of 512megs!

[sleddog]

I understood that pave_spectre meant he had 8mb modules available... purchasing 512mb of 72-pin SIMMS for that machine would cost more than it's worth.

[pave_spectre]

Yes while the board supports a maximum of 512 megs thats with 4 128 meg sticks and I only have 4 8 megs currently.

I re-read it and if I managed to find 2 32 meg sticks and moved the first bank(bank 0) of 8s to the third bank(bank 2) I could have a maximum of 96 meg.

One of these days I will learn to read things through properly.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

CSO is where I usually get things of that nature. They've got some 32 meg EDO and parity for 9 bucks each and the non-parity for even cheaper. But I don't usually install any in something slower than a Pentium 1 or better.