168 Pin PC100 and 72 Pin SIMMs Simultaneously

[Guest]

Hello all,

Does anyone have any experience with using SDRAM and SIMMs simultaneously? I have a Tyan S1509 Trinity 100 AT and the the manual shows configurations sharing the two types of memory. On the negative side, Tyan hasn't answered tech support emails, and Deja News folks generaly say not to do so. On the positive side, I tried it on the mobo temporarily, it booted fine, ran damn fast, and didn't burn out eiter type of module.

Nonetheless, I removed the SIMMs just in case.

Thanks for any opinions!

Tom

 

[Magus]

I would try running a couple benchmarks with and without the SIMMS. I don't think their is any problem with using them, but you want to make sure if their is a loss in memory speed it is worth having the added memory.

 

[machow]

If you could run it without much problems then go ahead. Wow. How much ram are you running now?

------------------------------------
Morgan 1.6Ghz + 256DDR = Dream on

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the really quick replies- I love this site!

Based on some posts on Deja News, I was worried that the voltage to the ~3 Volt SDRAM (a 64MB PC100 stick) would be too high, i.e it would see the ~5V of the SIMMs (2 X 16MB, Fast Page). I just don't have the background to endorse or dismiss their opinions. Since I ran the SDRAM and the SIMMs together for a couple of hours, I am *guessing* that the voltage is just fine for each type of stick. Also, it seems reasonabe also that a mobo designer worth their salt would A. design the two memory slots to provide that right V no matter what or B. warn the user not to mix the types.

The SIMMs are pretty slow so I will do some memory benchmarks comparing the two configurations. Can anyone suggest a freebie memory test utility?

 

[BrianL]

The problem with mixing both types is that the minute you put Simms on the Mobo, the data signal level goes to 5 V on both the Simm and Dimm slots. Over time this will burn out the Dimm. Earlier versions of 3.3V Dimms had a 5 V signal bus capability as do EDO Dimms still(but are very expensive)

It is cheaper to change out the motherboard if you are trying to upgrade a 3-4 year old computer with two DIMM slots & 4 SIMM slots and a bad chipset (i430vx) than try to get past the 64 meg slot/price wall

 

[Guest]

Thanks all for your opinions. It turns out (as some suggested) that adding the older SIMMs brings the overall performance of the system down.

 

[Guest]

I've been running both SIMMs and DIMMs without any problems for more than six months, The 1590s can supply 5 volts to the SIMMs and 3.3 volts to the DIMMs simultaneously, otherwise a reputable company like Tyan would never recommend mixing them.

The memory speed issue for me was simple, since I run Photoshop which is a black hole for memory. I don't notice the memory being any slower since I added the SIMMs, but anything is faster than Photoshop when it starts to spool an image to the hard drive.

PS: if it's of interest: the SIMMs are 32 MEG (each) 60 ns EDO; and the two DIMMs are 128 MEG (each) Crucial PC 133 CAS2.

 

[Guest]

I see your point: even slower RAM is much faster than the fastest disk swap space. I had suspected that since the mobo manual shows the configuration, it would be kosher. They just don't offer additional details to confirm the diagrams. I did email Tyan twice with the question. They haven't answered either query. One question, how do you know that the voltages are correct? Input from Tyan? Direct measurement?

Thanks!

 

[Guest]

I'm not sure where I read about the voltages. The newsgroup alt.periphs.mainboard.tyan often has good information if you're willing to sift through the fertillizer. I haven't done any tests, beyond just using the DIMMs and the SIMMs together. And the DIMMs still work.

SIMMs can only be used in bank 1; and the manual does indicate only one type at a time can be put in bank 1, i.e. they can't be mixed. So banks 2 and 3 only run at 3.3 volts since they only take DIMMs. Since the board automatically detects the memory, it has to know how to set the voltage correctly.

 

[Ncogneto]

Bear in mind that you will only run as fast as your slowest Ram ( I am asumming 60 ns edo?) This will bring down the speed of your SDRAM running probably at 10ns consederably. However a good point was made, even the slowest ram is faster than swap file. Ram is cheap now why not just get some new SDRAM?

 

[mogyver69]

I wanted to start by saying thank you to everyone thats responded to everyones questions this is a great page and exactly the information Ive been looking for. I have a ms-5145 main board and it allows 2 pc100 256mb cards and 2 72 pin edo 128mb cards for a total of 768 mb and my owners manual for the board says I can run them all together at the same time. My question to the group here is 1 in refernce to the last statement. So will my computer be faster with 512mb with the pc100 only or faster with my pc100 and my edo cards for a total of 768. 2 Ive been hereing alot about 60ns and 10 ns and if one card is rated at a smaller speed they all default to the slower speed but is that true when running the EDO and pc100 cards together. Also another big question in my cmos settings I have the option to change my dram timing from sdram 10ns to sdram 8ns or fast, medium or turbo. my default is sdram 10ns what would be the best setting if im running the biggest pc100 cards my system will allow and also my edo settings has adjustments too for fp/edo 70ns , fp/edo 60ns ,fast, medium and slow. my default is fp/edo 70ns what shouls I set these to. Im running pc100/133 cards and 2 64mb edo cards which I dont know if there 60ns but I do have the part # 0608 Hybird 64m EDO. Thank you. Any information would be helpful.
P.s Any information on clocking this syetm would be helpful as well. Thats another topic.

 

[mad_fitzy]

May I ask why?

 

[mogyver69]

Why do I want to change my settings? Why ? I dont understand the question. Im trying to get the most performance from my computer. I upgraded it from a 10gb hard drive to a 40gb which had to be set to a 32gb in order to load and I upgraded the ram from 128mb to 640mb total. Im trying to get the most from this machine. If theres any tuning I can do or clock work Id like to do it. And before you tell me to buy a better machine I already have one gateway 100gb hard drive with 1gb of ram and it runs awesome but this is my second computer so the wife and I can be on at the same time. Also these 2 machines are networked together. Thanks again...

 

[Mondoman]

Since the thread you replied to is almost 6 years old and almost all of the posters on it (including the original poster) are no longer active on the site, chances of gettings any relevant answers are low. Doesn't hurt to try, but I'd try contacting MSI tech support and/or any MSI-focused forums first.
Also, you need to clarify what you mean by "faster". Do you mean just RAM performance or do you mean Windows (or other OS-level) performance.

 

[mogyver69]

Thanks for your reply. What im after is being able to open my pages faster in my computer and when visiting sites like this having my pages open faster. My computer has jet lag it opens pages slowly. Im also having another issue right now im trying to sort out I tried following some instruction on clocking and made some adjustments on my main board and my computer would not load windows so I had to set my settings back to stock. I replaced my sdram cards and suddely Ive been having issues. My main board is getting volumn errors and im having to fix them using my windows CD. I fixed them and then run my computer again and it again starts working slow. Ive discovered that my bios is not seeing my hard drives correctly so I was able to install disk wizard and now it sees my main drive but my second drive still doesnt read correctly. It loads and seams to work though but again I get volumn errors. And have to make fixes. I tried using my other hard drive and installing Xp on it and ended up with the same problems. Im wondering if I have a Bios problem. Ive since removed the second drive made the corrections to my volumn again and am now trying it again.

 

[Mondoman]

Since you're getting corruption, either you're having a hardware malfunction, or, more likely, your antique components are not compatible with modern components. I'd go back to your original "sdram cards" or whatever your stable configuration was, thoroughly test that using memtest86+ on something like The Ultimate Boot CD, and then make any changes one by one, again doing extensive testing afterwards to verify that you still have a stable system.
In practice, the best way to achieve your goal without spending any/much money is to convert your machine to a Linux machine. Linux operates faster on fewer resources. You might also consider getting a less-bloated browser, perhaps something like Opera.