Old Gateway P5-120

amptron2x · Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2003 8:18 pm Post subject: Old Gateway P5-120

I have an old P5-120 with a Pentium 120 MHz CPU, a Selectron motherboard (MBDSAC045AAWW), and an Intel Triton 430 FX chip set running under the AMI 1.00.03.CN0T Bios. I am trying to upgrade the
memory on this machine from 64 Meg to 128 Meg. But when I install the
new memory, 4x32 Meg 60ns EDO SIMMs (which I tested on my other computer), the system sees only 64 Meg and malfunctions. Gateway's on-line documentation for this machine says that it can accept up to 128 Megs of memory and that it will recognize the additional memory automatically, without my changing jumpers or reconfiguring the BIOS. Needless to say, it doesn't.

Is there something I can do to get the machine to recognize the new memory? Or is it limited to 64 Meg by the BIOS?

NickS · Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2003 8:49 am Post subject:

How many chips on each SIMM ?

amptron2x · Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2003 10:05 pm Post subject: Re: Old Gateway P5-120

Hi Nick,

There are 4 chips on each SIMM, all on one side.

Amptron

NickS · Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2003 10:47 pm Post subject:

Any chance of swapping them for SIMMS with 16 chips ? The Intel documents on the i430FX chipset are no longer available and I can't find anything definitive on the chip technology they will support, but 64Mbit DRAM technology (32 Mbytes in 4 chips) could be more than it (or the motherboard) will cope with. I know for certain that some Intel based boards (e.g ICL Ergo X) will only take 32Mbyte SIMMs if they are 8 chips/side.
_________________
Tested patched BIOSes. Untested patched BIOSes .
Emails *will* be ignored unless the subject line starts "Wim's BIOS forum"

KachiWachi · Posted: Wed Jan 22, 2003 1:21 pm Post subject:

I'd bet NickS is correct.

There are some "chipset guides" out there that say 16Mbit technology, but again, nothing beats the manufacturers data sheets. I'd guess the same thing, since the FX was out around the same time as the VX, which supports 16Mbit.

Just had the opportunity to test this with a SimpleTech 64MB SIMM which wouldn't post in a VX board. If I remember, it had 4 chips per module as well. The board in question has 4 sockets, but one of them is damaged slightly, so we wanted to avoid using it. I was pretty sure it wouldn't work, but my IT guy said "let's try it..." Smile

amptron2x · Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2003 4:45 pm Post subject: SOLUTION!

First, I want to thank the people that replied to my query. They started my search for the answer in the right direction.

Anyway, the solution: The board on the P5-120 only accepts RAM with 2K refresh rates. The RAM I had origionally bought had a 4K refresh rate and, not suprisingly, did not work. Once I put 128 Megs with the 2K refresh rate into the MB, everything worked fine.

Bottom line - if you have an older board and you put in new memory and it doesn't work, try putting in memory with a 2K refresh rate. Good chance it will solve your problem.

KachiWachi · Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2003 7:06 pm Post subject:

Still the same amount of chips per stick??
(That would be 4 from your earlier post...)

amptron2x · Posted: Sun Feb 09, 2003 6:36 pm Post subject:

16 chips per stick, 8 on each side.