EDO DIMMS - Buffered or Unbuffered?

[Eli]

For an old Pentium systems with the VX chipset, which would I want, Buffered, or Unbuffered?

 

[Eli]

grumble <G> Up!

 

[BeHeMOTH]

that's a hard one did you build it yourself? I know Compaq used buffered RAM in there old pentium workstations. Besides that I've never had to mess with it.

I have 256MB of buffered Dimms and can't find a motherboard! to use it!

Someone might be able to tell you from the chipset or on the Intel site?

 

[Eli]

Well, yeah, I built it myself. I have no idea what motherboard it is, I can't even find an FCCID on it to identify it.

It has 24mb of ram right now (2-8meg sticks and 2-4meg sticks), and 2 free DIMM slots. It'd be cool to get a couple of 16mb EDO dimms to stick in there.


Hmm, 56mb of ram.. Is that even possible? You don't have to like take the 72pin SIMMS out when you install the DIMMs, do you?

 

[BeHeMOTH]

Oh no I have 2 128MB Dimms but can't find a motherboard that uses buffered RAM. A dimm is 168 pin so they physically don't fit. I'd say you can use unbuffered ram.

 

[Vincent]

I've seen documentation for an Intel 430TX-based motherboard saying that using a DIMM slot disables two of the SIMM slots. Take a look at the documentation on Intel's website for the chipsets. For the 430VX chipset, the documentation says that it supports unbuffered DIMM modules with SDRAMs.

 

[Eli]

LOL, I know DIMMs won't fit in SIMM slots. The board in question has 2-168pin DIMM slots and 4-72pin SIMM slots.

I was just wondering if i needed to get Buffered or Unbuffered EDO DIMMs

Hmm, That would suck if using the DIMM slots disabled the SIMM slots.. Hmm heh


LOL, when you go to Intel's site, your greeted with a screen saying, &quot;Making the Internet as powerful as our processors&quot;

Kinda just makes ya chuckle..

 

[loner]

BeHeMOTH--Is that ECC Buffered??? I'm reassembling an old P-Pro that I have, and might be needing some more...

 

[coke]

According to the P3B-F's manual, the keys' position for buffered/unbuffered and 5v/3.3v are different so these buffered modules won't fit.
You probably need 3.3V Unbuffered SDRAM or EDO DIMMs. However, if you're on to SDRAM, whatever they are PC133, 100 or 66MHz rated, make sure they are made of 16-Mbit technology DRAM chips, that's a limitation of the iVX chipset. Shortly, you must get a 8-chip 16MB SDRAM, a 16-chip 32MB SDRAM or a 32-chip 64MB SDRAM (i.e, 16 chips * 16Mbits == 256Mbits or 32MBytes). No that cheap 4-chip 64-Mbit 32MB SDRAM won't fit (the iVX will recognise it as 8MB)

 

[coke]

I don't know for sure about this, but as it seems to me, the VX boards used to have only 6 (or 3, dunno) RAS lines (Assuming this is the real word, I don't recall the exact word now).
Possibly your DIMM1/SIMM1&amp;2 share the same RAS lines. Then you'd have 3 banks, like:
bank 1: DIMM1 or SIMM1&amp;2
bank 2: DIMM2
bank 3: SIMM3&amp;4
Technically, it *would* be possible for you to fit memories in all slots of the shared bank (DIMM1 and SIMM1&amp;2) *if* they are of the same technology (FPM/EDO/SDRAM), *and* they are single-sided (i.e. use just 1 RAS line instead of 2, so one completes the other).
Otherwise you'll lose one of the SIMM banks.
Again I can be wrong

 

[BeHeMOTH]

Eli I have a FIC 503+ that has 2 Dimms and 4 Simms I can use either one but not both, only good thing about it is that Dimms are getting cheaper than Simms. You might want to change to a Dimm.

Hey Loaner Yea it's ECC-I have 2 of them.

 

[Eli]

Can I use normal PC66 or PC100 memory in them, or does it have to be 60ns EDO DIMMs?


Hmm... I have some boards here with 1 DIMM and 4 SIMMs.. I kinda doubt that populating the DIMM slot on these boards disables the SIMM slots...... That would really suck from an upgrade standpoint..

 

[Vincent]

Just take a look at this Intel chipset webpage and find the specs for your chipset:

http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/mature/index.htm?iid=PCG+devleftnav&amp;

 

[Eli]

I've already looked It didn't really give much info.. Is what I need is the motherboard manufacturer.

Oh, I didn't look at that. That doesen't have the VX chipset, anyway.

 

[dszd0g]

On most of those old Pentium systems mixing DIMMs and SIMMs was a bad idea. You probably don't want to do it. Use one or the other. Yes, some mobo manufactures did take the approach as I recall of disabling the SIMM slots if you put in DIMMs. The performance/stability of using both was bad. I believe I even tried it in one of my old Tyan mobos at the time and it wouldn't even POST.

Personally, if you really have to keep those old Pentium systems around ditch the SIMMs and put in DIMMs. You might as well buy PC133 for the difference in price between it an 66Mhz DIMMs. At least you can grab the memory and put it in a newer system that way when you finally decide to retire the old Pentium systems. You should probably double check the max size of DIMMs that the board will support if you are planning on putting in a lot of memory.

 

[Eli]

hehe.. I have a whole bunch of them.. see http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=27&amp;threadid=179281

So are you saying that I can use normal PC66, PC100 or PC133 memory in these DIMM slots, even though they were meant for 60ns EDO? I mean, Obviously since they're faster, they have the potential to work, i'm just wondering if the board will handle them right.

Awh hell, I should just pull one of my DIMMs and see if it works. Duh. Maybe next time my BBS crashes.. Don't want to take it down just to do that.

You do all know what a BBS is, right?

http://telnet://216.99.207.143

Hm, It automatically puts http:// infront of links.

 

[Eli]

Hmm, What about the boards that I have that only have 1 DIMM slot and 4 SIMM slots? You couldn't possibly be expected to put 1 DIMM in it and not populate the others, could you?

 

[coke]

Provided that these DIMMs are 16Mbit technology, yes. I don't think it was actually meant for EDO DIMMs, I myself used several SDRAM in VX-based boards.
I have never seen VX boards with 1DIMM/4SIMM, only FX and FX-66 boards. However, it's very unlikely that these boards would have just 2 memory banks instead of 3, so you could populate them all. Just make sure these boards have that 5v/3.3v SDRAM jumper set to 3.3v

 

[Vincent]

You can go to &quot;chipsets&quot; on the left side of this page

http://support.intel.com/sites/support/index.htm?iid=devheader+support&amp;

to find information on the 430VX chipset and other older ones as well.

Here's the link for the 430VX chipset.

http://support.intel.com/support/chipsets/430VX/

It says something about SDRAM support that I don't understand.

 

[Eli]

Heh.. I've read it, unfortunately Intel's documentation doesen't give very much useful info.. I wish I could find the manufacturer of the motherboard.

Yep.. I have 2 VX boards with 1 DIMM slot..

 

[Eli]

Oops, DP ..