h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Video RAM is often faster than conventional RAM, too.

This is all very interesting! That website that explains the motherboard is brill!

Yel - when buying more RAM, you can't mix and match sizes. i.e. if you've got two slots, you can't put a 32MB stick in one and 64MB in the other, it has to be either both 32MB or both 64Mb (my housemate just got me two 128MBs for my home computer ).
(They're called 'sticks' cuz that's what they look like. About the length and breadth of half a ruler.)

I'm lucky in that I've got friends who know about the innards, but I make sure I'm there if they're playing, and keep pointing my finger inside and saying "what's that then?" and "what does that do then?"

Computer bits are so cheap nowadays that you can upgrade bit by bit. However, the PC I had until recently was so old it didn't even have USB ports, so obviously I was limited! How old is yours?

btw, Crucial.com doesn't have my make in its 'Top Manufacturers' either

Is it true then that a video card has it's own RAM, but will draw from the main RAM if its struggling?

Yes, my video card on this machine has 256mb DDR ram onboard, this is mainly a gaming PC.




pedboy®

i will give you a really big tip, if you want a good video card and not pay a lot, dont buy the best card out, as soon as something better comes out their prices will drop a lot

Queeg,
That was a really helpful comment. Thanks. Did not know that I could not mix randomly. You just may have saved me a Euro or two...

Y.

Woohoo! I'm almost 'techie'

You can mix with SDRAM, the older SIMM-type you can't - you'd usually have three sets of pairs of slots so they could be doubled-up.

Mine uses SD and I've got twox256 and a 128 and it works fine.

Thats what we did with the video card, waited for them to bring out the new version, which was bonkers expensive, then got the older version pretty cheap

That don't make no sense...

So I went ahead and bought RAM. Yay. 256MB. I would be the speed king of Germany. Or so I thought. I installed that stick, and things worked just nicely. The improvement is considerable. BUT... I only get 128 MB out of those 256. That would only be half of what I paid for by my book. I went back to the store and the guy there gave me a very helpful smile and said, "Oh, your computer only recognizes half of the chip." Reeealy now? It's not like I could not have told him THAT. Sad thing is that the salesperson insists that this would happen no matter what I buy these days. Even if I were to buy two sets of 128 a piece, the computer would again only recognize half of it, making it a total of... You guessed correctly.
So. Is that kid right? Can I only get half the action of modern sticks (the old ones are apparently not to be had anymore). Do I really have to buy two times 256 MB to get 256 MB?

Darn it, and I was so excited yesterday that things seemed to be working out for a blissful half hour.

The computer guy mentioned something about a bios update. Now what the heck would that be?

Y.

The BIOS (basic input output system) is the very lowest level of software in your PC... it's the first thing that kicks in when you boot up, and as such is stored on a chip because there aren't any hard disks at that stage.

It deals with basic stuff like 'how much memory do I have... what processor... how many hard disks' and so on.

Upgrading your BIOS is often possible, but a little scary. It involves running a program (probably from floppy so you're not running Windows at all) which will overwrite what's currently on the chip. If you use the wrong upgrade, or the power dies while it's in progress... no more BIOS, and you probably need to replace the chip.

Anyway... do you need to? I'm not sure. When your computer boots up, it should say what BIOS it's using... you can look that up, and see if there are upgrades. It's possible... and with luck they'll say if they help. Seems a bit of a long shot, though.

I'd agree that there probably is a bios update to allow it to take more RAM per slot. These are quite scary though.

Could you swap it for two x 128MB ones in the shop?

Right,

The 'name' given by that proggy is NOT the name of your motherboard (mainboard, big circuit board in computer wot everything plugs into).
What it has actually told you is the name of the manufacturer (Gigabyte) and the chipset used (i440lx-W977).
somewhere like
http://www.plasma-online.de/index.html?content=http%3A//www.plasma-online.de/english/identify/serial/mainboard/mb_gigabyte.html
can help identify what model number your motherboard is by checking the chipset and the motherboard features (ie how many slots etc). Interestingly, seems a lot of the Gigabyte i440-LX boards were dual-CPU, is yours? If you manage to get a model number (and make damn sure it is the right one) then you can BIOS update, but if you can;t get another computer then do not do this due to the aforementioned risk of everything going a bit pear shaped.

Also, and somebody correct me if I am wrong, but Win98 has a memory cap on it doesn;t it? I'm pretty sure it cannot actually use / see anything over 128Mb and in fact installing more than that can result in 'out of memory' errors (like anyone would need mnore than 640k anyway ) and it may even be less.

First time I've ever heard of Win 98 having a memory cap!

Anyone got any details on that... **he pleads, typing on a Win98SE machine with 256mB **

The Win98 cap is 512MB.

It will recognise more but only use the first 512, apparently. Didn't have any crashing or memory probs when I had 768, anyway.

Then you's a lucky bod

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;253912

anything more than 512Mb on 95/98/98SE/ME can cause problems with out of memory. Over 1.5 Gb can cause even bigger probs.

Apparently, there is also an internal cap of 255Mb on memory allocations, so no program running on your machine can have more than 256Mb allocated to it. Or thats what it seems to say in
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;198959

But I'm sure windows coder would be able to make better sense.

Well, I only wanted to go up to 256 (that's stellar, isn't it?), so I should be good to go with regard to the memory cap. If only I COULD go there...
Anyway, I was told that if I were to insert 2x128 MB, that old fart of a computer would still only take half of each. So I might have to go to 2x256...
But - I will not even think twice about the Bios thing anymore. No way. You know what really freaks me out is this inconsistency of information I am getting all over the place. I have figured out by now (judging from the chipset and all) that I have a GA686LX4. Or so I thought. I rechecked my data and found that maybe it was more likely that I have a LX3, not LX4. That would be in compliance with what I had found on that old Giga-byte site (a combination of identical chip number, but different indexing on the bios, one was called 4.51PGM (corresponding to LX4), the other was 5.51PG - LX3). Only that on LX3's there are only 3 memory slots (which was incidentally confirmed by a software I ran on my PC), but in fact there are 4 of those. Which would make it an LX4. However, on that Plasma website, the LX4 has a completely different chip and all than listed on the Gigabyte site.
Which is EXACTLY why I will not go there and fiddle around with the bios. Now who on earth would I dare to trust...
Well, what is there to do to finally KNOW for sure what my Mother of a board model is? Screwing that computer open again and look for evidence, that is what I am up to. And if all else fails I can at least say that I used the word "screw" and "computer" in one sentence and did not mean it in that other sense of the verb...

Y.

best bet for definitive number? Get the serial number and version number of the motherboard and email it to gigabyte support and ask them.

In fact, the motherboard should have its model number and revision printed on it somewhere fairly visible. Thats the best bet. Also the bios might tell you. But open up and shine a torch on the m/b and see what it says. Or ask Gigabyte how to find out.

Someone on one of the boards mentioned that you may not have to alter the bios, but you may have to go into it to get it to recognise the new memory. Have you been into the bios to see what it says?

Hey, you really flatter me there. Until you mentioned it, I did not even KNOW you could go INTO the bios...
Anyway, I will do what you suggested and mail those findings (once I get them, I am presently in a library, not using my own computer and keeping other library users from doing ebay here...) to Giga-Byte. They do have a nice form to fill in on their webpage; and they tell you where to look for all the numbers you need.
But before I do any of that, I will go to my brother in law to watch how the German soccer team get their butts kicked by the Scottish team tonight.
Y.

*makes no comment on football - except good luck! *