MISSING MEMORY!

[squidgelet10]

Hi Guys.
I recently took in an old, but working, IBM PC running WIN98 with a 64mb memory card @ 133mhz from a friend who was going to skip it. The keyboard, monitor, mouse etc would have been useful anyway.
I put a new 512mb/133mhz DIMM card in and loaded WINXP and the thing works brilliantly BUT, the 'properties' department tells me the machine has only 128mb RAM at 600-and-something mhz!
I thought I would have gained the full 512mb.
Can anyone out there tell me the why's/wot's/wherefore's please?
Cheers.

[ChuckFickens]

Firstly the properties doesn't tell you the memory speed, that's the CPU speed at 600Mhz.

Check the BIOS and see what memory it's reporting in there.

[Old_Geezer]

I'm unsure but maybe the processor can't cope ?
In any case ensure you have the latest BIOS version.

[squidgelet10]

>Firstly the properties doesn't tell you the memory speed, that's the CPU speed at 600Mhz.<
Really?
Every PC etc I have gotten my hands on has always featured both RAM and speed in that little box wot pops up when one clicks on My Computer ----> Properties.
Perhaps you should try it on yours? You might be amazed.
Bios is giving me almost exactly the same reading, given that I just popped the old card (64mb) back in with the new one just for devilment.
Wot originally showed up as 128mb in Properties now shows up in BIOS as:
Base Memory = 640k
Extended Memory = 194560k
Total Memory = 195584k.
I think I will leave it at that until such time as somebody comes up with a sensible suggestion.
Stay good!
Cheers.

[squarebear]

As it's so old, I would doubt it can handle 512Mb of memory.

[ChuckFickens]

SB is possibly correct about the BIOS not supporting 512MB dimms if you check you BIOS make a version number you may be able to find the maximum supported dimm size in the specs somewhere.

And the properties does not tell you the RAM speed, it will tell you the CPU type, the CPU model, the CPUs rated speed, the speed the CPU is currently running at and the amount of RAM.

[Old_Geezer]

And there was me thinking I'd made a sensible suggestion, in my invisible post :-p

[rojash]

"Perhaps you should try it on yours? You might be amazed."
I love it when someone who's totally wrong tries to be condescending :-)

As Chuck says, the box shows the processor speed not the memory speed. Perhaps you are confused by the fact that the processor speed is shown on the same line as the amount of RAM.

[squidgelet10]

With the exception of Old Geezer, it is clear that no-one else has a clue what I am asking about.
I am not talking memory "speed" here, rojash, but RAM:
RAM = RAM = RAM.
Mr Fickens, as usual, is talking absolute tripe as he has done on many occasions in the past. Mr Rojash appears to be running a very close second.
Stay good!
Cheers.
xxx

[ChuckFickens]

LMAO!!!!

And what does RAM stand for?....... oh yeah, that's it, Random Access MEMORY!

You have got PC133 memory (RAM) in your computer, it runs at 133MHZ which matches the front side bus (FSB) of your computer, the 600 (something) MHZ speed is the speed of your processor witch is set using the FSB speed and a processor multiplier value. I suggest you go and do some reading before being so sure of your facts.

But as this wasn't your question and I was purely pointing out your original error to try and help you I'll leave that there.

As for the memory quantities, as has been pointed out there is a high chance that a BIOS designed to run a P3 processor won't support memory chips larger than 128MB, as I did imply in my first post the manufacturer and model of the BIOS would enable you (or people on here) to determine for sure if it is firstly a BIOS limitation and secondly if there is a BIOS upgrade available to enable the computer to see more memory.

[rojash]

Still laughing...

[willyboy]

Sorry, this is a bit old now but just happened to be paging through.
Had to read the original post twice, but can't see the prob. as all SQ is asking is when a 512mb memory card is installed why does it show up as 128mb.
Bearing in mind the motherboard and chipset primarily determine the ram used, my first port of call re anything to do with memory is the Crucial System Scanner and the Crucial Memory Advisor tools.
http://www.crucial.com/
The scanner will tell you what it thinks you've got, and the advisor will tell you what you can use.
Give those a whirl first. The results may answer your question for you.