RichardJSampson

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Aug 23, 2001
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I never thought I'd buy an OEM system, but I did last summer because for my purposes, it was an outstanding deal. I still feel this way, BUT.. I would like to upgrade my memory. I only have 2 DIMM slots on the motherboard (I can hear some of you shaking your head already), and the OEM's site says that each slot can only take 128 MB apiece. However, that specification was written quite awhile ago. So am I maxed out at 256 on that mobo? Or is there a way around this?
 

FatBurger

Illustrious
No way to tell unless you can tell us exactly what motherboard it is. You haven't even told us what OEM you bought it from or any other specs. Any other info would be nice.

But I would trust what's on the OEM's site.



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RichardJSampson

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The OEM is HP. As of right now, I do not know the mobo manufacturer (how ignorant is that). I'll have to wait about a half hour to get home from work and find out. It's one of those ubiquitous Pavilion models. (8655c)

PS - Incidentally, if in fact it truly is limited at 128 per module, what in the mobo's hardware physically restricts this?
 

FatBurger

Illustrious
The chipset restricts that, meaning you would have to buy a new motherboard in order to get around it.



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Spdy_Gonzales

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You can go to the HP site and get the specs for your pc.

<A HREF="http://www.hp.com/cposupport/nonjsnav/pvpc.html" target="_new">http://www.hp.com/cposupport/nonjsnav/pvpc.html</A>

Then you can check with Crucial to see if they carry what you need.

<A HREF="http://www.crucial.com" target="_new">http://www.crucial.com</A>

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RichardJSampson

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Hey, if you're wondering what my specs are.. Here's the best I can come up with. The chipset is Intel 810e. I looked on the motherboard itself trying to find the maker, but I literally could not find a logo of any sort. The closest thing to a logo I could find was something that said "MEW PM" in a large font. I ran WCPUID and that said that the motherboard was an Asus Hawk. Does this help? Can I exceed 256 MB?? Thanks for your help guys.
 

Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff
Your motherboard actually supports 256Mb single sided PC133 DIMMS. I recommend Crucial as a supplier and Cas2 because it's so close in price to Cas3 but performs better (even if you can't change the latecy on this board, you may want to upgrade your board later and keep the memory). Your maximum is 512MB.

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RichardJSampson

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Thanks for your help. I'm glad 256 is not the limit. I know that Ca2 latency performs substantially better, but nowhere in my BIOS is there the option to set latencies. Does this mean that the mb cannot support Ca2? Will Ca2 still work better anyway? If a BIOS upgrade is in order, how do I go about doing that as there are no removable CMOS chips on the board?
 

Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff
Most i810 boards automatically detect all your modules by SPD and set the Cas Latency according to the slowest one. Some OEM boards are locked at Cas3 by default I think to reduce the likelyhood of instability with cheap ram. But Cas2 can run a Cas3, cost about 1% more, and when you get around to upgrading the motherboard, will be nice to have.
You cannot to my knowlege use Asus Bios on an HP board, the board is modified for HP to remove certain hady features, such as multiplier and clock adjustments. It also has the second clock crystal removed, all the important jumpers, and has a four pin connector added behind the USB connector for the front USB cable, which takes the place of the top rear connector.

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