gareth

Hi,

I bought some memory for my PC which is an oldish Gateway box based on an Intel 440BX chipset. The manual says it'll take up to 512Mb of memory if "4-clock PC66 or 100-compliant".

Having installed the memory (2 * 256Mb) it's only showing up as 2 * 128Mb.

I originally bought PC133 chips which I was told should be okay but might show up as half the actual amount. That was what happened so I swapped them for the older PC100 type but it's still doing the same thing.

I've been through the BIOS setup and also updated the BIOS from the Gateway website, but it hasn't helped.

Grateful for any ideas or tips...

Thanks,
Gareth

sly fox

gareth,

Simple answer to your problem.

Theoretically, high quality pc133 should be "backward compatable", but this is not always the case

I would image you have single sided memory (all the chips on one side), so it would only recognise only half of the capasity,

or

even worse the motherboard might not even recognise the large chips on the dimm module and only displays them as the biggest it can see.

either way, i would take them back to where you bought them and get a refund / changed.

sy

Silent Monkey

256MB SDRAM modules being seen as 128MB is AFAIU is more to do with the architecture/chip type of the DIMM than the speed.

Try http://www.crucial.com/uk/index.asp select your model of Gateway and see what they would supply.

gareth

Thanks for the tips

I've researched this a bit more... can't find my exact model (G6-350) on the Crucial site but the ones that are listed take max 128Mb in each slot.

The Belarc Advisor program identified my chipset as Intel RC440BX and according to the Intel website it should take 2 * 256Mb (same as my Gateway manual says). However, my BIOS code doesn't exactly match the code for a RC440BX which apparently means that I have a "Gateway-flavour" RC440BX...

Like I said above the manual specifies "4-clock" and I'm pretty sure everything I've tried to put in there up to now says "CL2" on it...

Silent Monkey

Kingston list the G6-350 and G6-350HE, doesn't list 256MB DIMMs as being available only 128MB, with 384MB being maximum in the 3 slots.

Does your board have 2 or 3 slots? Not unknown for Gateway to have used different boards in the same model.

Give Crucial a phone, they are always very helpful.

gareth

Thanks - it has 2 slots. I've dropped a line to Crucial sales/support.