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Name: dominicus
I recently came across some of those hard to find 8 meg 30 pin sticks of ram, and filled up the slots in an old 386 of mine..well, it now runs almost twice as fast, but oddly, the ram check only shows 4 megs, when it should be 32..i know for sure that the ram is good...is there something in those really old phoenix bios settings that needs to be adjusted....i'm stumped...
Do you have 8meg simms in each of the four memory slots? If not that could be the problem. 30-pin simm configuration required the same size memory in all four slots. Otherwise, it might be some sort of BIOS limitation.
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Most 386's & 486's couldn't see SIMMS larger than 4MB (and a lot of early 386's could only see 256K's and 1MB's). If it's a 386sx, then 16MB would be the limit anyway.
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Those are hard to find.
Acquired some 4Mb sticks last summer (I've yet to try them), the fellow that sold them told me they wouldn't necessarily be recognized in earlier 386's (iirc)
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First off, your mboard has to be able to use/support 8mb simms (as TRA said).
For an SX, they must be installed in pairs, side by side in designated slots, each SIMM in the pair being IDENTICAL in its wiring, if not in appearance - at the very least they MUST have the same number of chips, and the chips must be of the same type (4 bit x..., * bit x..., etc.)
For a DX, same thing applies, only you need four of the same, side by side.
In addition to that, some mboards will not recognize certain types of chips on the modules, at all, or they can't see the full capacity.
Do you have the manual for this computer?
If you don't, they are very hard to come by on the net. You could quote your bios string, and I could try to find a manual for you, but chances are, nothing will be found about your mboard.(if you don't know what that is, go to www.wimsbios.com, download Bios Agent, run it, tell us what it comes up with).If the place you got this ram from has more of the same, go there, try different modules, keeping in mind the above.
e.g. It could very well be 4-4mb will be recognized fine. If you got it privately, go to a place that sells used computer pieces, used ram.
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Yup, they're all identical, but it's as i suspected then, there's something in the rom.....guess i'll take them out. I'll keep my eyes open for 4 meg sticks, but they're not that common either (probably more than 8 or 16 meg ones tho- has anyone even ever seen the 16 meg 30 pins? i haven't- i'd love to find a set!)
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Until I'd acquired that set of 4Mb, only seen 1Meg & žMeg sticks. I'd heard of 2's
That stuff's gettin' scarce. Check ebay maybe?
DOS: Learn it Love it Live it
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The reason there are not many above one or two meg is when they first came out they were over &100 per meg, though that got better later. At first only businesses could afford the larger capacity simms.
You should be able to find 4 meg ones easily enough - do you have a manual?
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I wouldnt be too concerned about the bios check on ram. Your system was proably only designed to count to 4 meg in the first place. The fact that the system is running faster tells you all you need to know, the ram is fine.
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