Hi folks, just wondering if anyone could shed any light on a little problem I have come across. Several Thinkpad T30's have landed in the office, castoffs from another office, and one is being strange. It has 512Mb RAM fitted but is only recognising 256Mb of it. I have tried removing one SIMM at a time, and with either one in place it still boots up with 256Mb RAM. I have swapped the SIMMs with another T30.. which then promptly recognised the full 512Mb with the suspect SIMMs in a different laptop. Putting the 512Mb from the 'good' T30 into the one with the problem didnt make any difference either, this still only recognised 256Mb RAM in the machine which had the problem originally. I have reformatted the hard drive/reloaded Xp, so no longer have any of the IBM specific software - eg PC Doctor - available to this machine, and as these arrived without any CDs I can't reload anything other than a generic Windows XP CD. Does anyone have any idea if there is anything I can do to this laptop to make it realise how much memory is actually installed in it? I have tried booting the laptop up with no memory in it at all then replacing the memory in the vague hope this might make it refresh itself but to no avail. Thanks in advance

This will be a bios or hardware error. find out how to access the BIOS (usually DEL or F2 just after the system turns on) and reset the bios to its factory defaults, and then check how much memory is recognised at startup. You may have to press a special key (f2, tab, esc - just whack the keyboard with your fist) to see the POST memory test if a logo comes up instead.

Thanks, I'll have to check this tonight.. being surrounded by these things I just realised the one I'm looking at isn't the one with this particular problem! I have already selected the diagnostic boot mode, and whichever combination of memory is/was fitted it still only counted up to 256Mb RAM. Coincidentally(?) these machines had 256Mb RAM when new apparently. I will try resetting to factory defaults later and see if that makes any difference

I've reset the bios to the factory defaults and its still only recognising 256Mb RAM. When it's counting up the memory during startup, it stops at 254Mb. I went onto IBM's website last night and downloaded all the required and recommended software updates for it, which included updating the BIOS. None of this has made any difference to the memory problem - but at least I now know that it's still under warranty 8-) Thanks for your help INH.

There is a known problem with the motherboard overheating on the T30 when both memory slots are in use. Only remedy that I have seen is replace the motherboard. The second slot will not recognize the dimm; thus, it appears you have half of the memory! Send it in for a warranty MB replacement. Cheers!

Hi, I too have the same problem. I have 2x512MBs and it is recognising only 1x512MB and the second slot is not being recognised. Previously it used to work fine and sometimes it shows 1GB of memory, but most of the times it doesnt. Nowadays it stopped recognising the second slot any more. Is there any remedy regarding to the software? -Pav

I also have a t30 91u with the second slot not recording its memory. I wonder how long the warranty is on the mother board for this overheating problem. If not covered, how much to replace the board? anyone know? bailey