Mobo wont recognize ram

[gergesa28]

Hey guys

i am rebuilding this old computer, i got this pentium 1 mobo (PCI500C-H) in i put ram in it and it worked normally as it booted up then i added a hdd, cdrom and floppy but then i tried to start it and it wont, i took out everything and descovered that it wont recognize the ram it only recognizes a pc100 8Mb ram i have one more stick of 64 MB but the computer wont recognize it and i tested the 64 MB ram on another mobo and it works just fine, any suggestions?

and thanks
gergesa28

Edited: to change 56 MB ram to 46 MB ram (sorry Typo)

[jsawicki]

my first suggestion is to clarify if u meant 56 or 64 mb ram? and my 2nd sugesstion is to make sure that its pushed in tightly. and my only question is, what kinda computer has 1 stick of 8 mb ram? lol that seems awfully low

[Yuanji]

not rlly if its on an old computer

[Mesaeus]

Could that be this board ? I take it it has sdram sockets ? If so, you probably will be limited to very low chip densities. What this means is that an "ordinary" 64 Megabyte sdram dimm will not work, because it's using chips that have too large a capacity. Is the dimm you're trying double sided (chips on both sides) ? If not, you can try finding either double sided, or double height 64 Mb dimms. I have some of the latter, they are 64 Mb sdram dimms that run at PC66, and next to double sided, they also have a second row of chips so you have double height dimms. These are great because they will provide 64 megabyte even in your board. The fact that your 64 Mb dimm was pc100 leads me to suspect it has too high a chip density. You could always check out sites like ebay, if you stick to 32 Mb dimms you should have no trouble finding one that works on your board, and they don't exactly cost a lot of money anymore.

[gergesa28]

ya its a pretty old computer, it came with 2 sticks of 32 mb ram of the little ram like this one: (http://www.pcmech.com/memory.htm) the little memory stick on the front in the picture(i dont really know its name) , which were working @ first but then i when i removed them and used the 8Mb Pc100 stick the computer worked just fine, i dont know why

[gergesa28]

Originally Posted by Mesaeus Could that be this board ?

Ya thats the one

[Mesaeus]

Ah yes, I was busy editing my post to add additional info. Bottom line : you can fill it up to 128 Mb with either sdram (the biger ones) or 64 Mb with simms (the smaller ones), but you'll have to find them first. A double sided 64 Megabyte dimm might work, a double sided, double height 64 Megabyte dimm definitely works but is a lot harder to find. Every dimm smaller than that will also work, so you might limit yourself to 32 Mb dimms for 64 Mb total memory.

As for the simms, there exist 32Mb simms, but they are also hard to find.
edit : looks like you already got two 32 Mb simms. You can expand it, but it's not easy to find the right dimms. Personally, I think only the double sided/double height 64 Mb dimms would work, and I don't think it would be worth it to hunt for those. So just keep what you got.

[gergesa28]

I just tried and put both sticks of 32 Mb simms in the mobo but and tried to boot it up the computer wouldnt show anything on the screen and it just keeps beeping, but when i remove them and add the 8 MB dimm the computer boots up fine but i cant put os on it!

[gergesa28]

Thanks guys for your help, i finally figured it out, if i put Ram in the simm socket i cant put Ram in the dimm socket, now i have 64 Mb ram on the computer i am going to attach the hdd and everything else and i will tell ya guys when i am done, thanks again for your help!!