Questions on MS 6382 Motherboard

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.msi-microstar (More info?)

Hi,

I'm new to this newsgroup and to computer hardware in general - please
be tolerant of any (deletes 'stupidity') naviety shown!

I've owned a Time Computer (UK) AMD Athlon 2000+, which has a MSI 6382
Mobo, for two years now and I would like some advice on upgrading.

The first area I'm looking at is memory. Currently I have 512MB in two
sticks of 256Mb which occupy the only two dimm sockets the board has.

I'm a bit confused by this because I had assumed that to upgrade I
would have to replace one or both existing sticks with 512MB sticks
(some info I've read says I might have to replace both at once rather
than go from 512 to 768MB) but at this link

http://www.pcx.com.ph/showcase/profile.asp?id=165

it says:

"Support four memory banks using two 184-pin DDR DIMM
Support a maximum memory size of 2GB
Support 2.5v SDRAM DIMM"

How can it support 4 memory banks if there are only 2 DIMM sockets?

Also, the current memory is Samsung PC2100 non-EEC ram (part# M3
68L3313CT1-CB0) - does this board support EEC Ram? (not that I know
what these abbreviations mean!)

The second thing I'm looking at is to add a second HDD. From what I've
read so far it seems it is best to mount it away from the first HDD
and near a fan.

My existing HDD is mounted at the front of the tower, nowhere near a
fan but above an air inlet, and its help in a casing (is this called a
caddy?) with space for another HDD directly on top - would I have
heating or any other kind of problem if I put a second HDD there? is
it possible to buy another casing and mount it on the bottom of the
tower or something (using sticky pads *grin*).

Any general advice or links to useful info/forums would be welcome!

--

John Latter

Model of an Internal Evolutionary Mechanism (based on an extension to homeostasis) linking Stationary-Phase Mutations to the Baldwin Effect.
http://members.aol.com/jorolat/TEM.html

'Where Darwin meets Lamarck?' Discussion Egroup
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/evomech