With today's "fast" internet you would need 1024mb RAM to merely browse the Googles.

I really hate to say this, but 16MB isn't going to do miracles for this. Even 32MB just 3 generations ahead is trouble.

Can OffByOne work on Win32s?

I hope you like gopher. E:

Back in 1994, my 386 had a Soyo board with ali 1429 chipset. I don't have it any more, but I've kept the manual. Reading this right now, it's written at the bottom of the first page : version 2.0 19R. It might be the same board. It supports 16mb simms up to 128mb. But it has 128kB cache memory, which I think is sufficient for 32MB RAM. And if you're going to use 16mb simms, you have to fill either one bank(64MB) or both(128MB). In general, I'd suggest that you try to find 4 4mb simms to have 16mb total, and perhaps use a fast compact flash card instead of a HDD, and it's going to be fine.

Wow thanks Markk, my board has 128kb cache, the kit I'm looking at on ebay is 64meg total, 4X16meg sims, Ive only been looking for a few weeks and sets of 4 30 pin simms arent that plentiful, at the moment its either the 64meg set or a 4meg set (4X1meg), I should have taken a 2nd choice offer on a 16meg set(4X4) but thats gone now.

I want to build close to the best 386 I can, 16meg would have been sufficient, 32meg overkill.

the compact flash sounds like an interesting idea, I'll look into it.

P.S Markk, Any chance of getting scans of that manual or perhaps a token monetry incentive to send it my way?
I dont expect miracles,

To be honest Dirkmirk, all I have to remind me my old pcs, are some manuals, and a few parts, so I'd rather not give it away. But I'll be glad to scan it for you. I'll let you know when I have it ready.

No problem at all, Scans would be than fine I appreciate that very much.

One last question, Non Parity simms are fine?

Yes. If we're talking about the same board after all, the only thing about memory that is written in the manual concerning the simm type, is that suports two banks of 256K,1M,4M and 16M SIMM, and that the mainboard requires SIMM of at least 80ns access time.

Sweet! The ram im looking at is 60ns, hopefully it all works, 64meg should be more than enough.

dirkmirk wrote:

Sweet! The ram im looking at is 60ns, hopefully it all works, 64meg should be more than enough.

Tip: That RAM you're looking at - don't bid too high on it. The seller always relists extra the following day after the sale ends. The reason? They've got "several hundred sticks" left. (Their own words.)

Thanks for the tip, this was going to be my strategy anyway, I saw that he has plenty of listings and past sales of the same thing,

The maximum amount of memory a board can take will not only depend on the chipset, but also the BIOS. I would guess that support for 16mb SIMMs on 386 motherboards is even more limited than the 486 boards that support it. In my experience though, if you plug 16mb SIMMs onto a board that doesn't support them, they will still be detected as 4mb SIMMs.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

The maximum amount of memory a board can take will not only depend on the chipset, but also the BIOS.

I bet this is very true. That soyo board can take up to 128mb according to the manual. Another board I have right now with the same chipset(ali 1429) can take only 4mb simms, so its 32mb max, and another manual I found of a board with ali 1429, limited it's max. memory to 64mb(can take 16mb simms, but when you're using those you can fill only the first bank). Of course all this in theory. I don't think anyone would buy 16mb simms just to test if you can have 128mb on a 386....

Well, I would provided I had a 386 board that could take them, and enough cash on hand. I dropped some cash on eight 16meg 30 pin SIMMs for my 486 several years ago. I'd like to buy another eight, but I won't pay more than $20 per set of four.

I have a friend whom had a father I knew (R.I.P) when he put 16 megabytes into his 386, some people thought he was mad , because they told him "that nothing would need that "much" memory" but well look at the computers of today, then my friends father was not stupid.

A classmate had 16mb ram in his 286, he WAS crazy.

I have 4x4MB in my 386, but I don't really need them. I would be ok with 8. It's just because of the 32bit addressing of the DX CPU I can't put just two simms, and I have to fill the bank. Another 386sx board I have is ok with 1/2 simms. I could just use 8x1MB, but I don't have 8 identical I think, and I would like them to be.... As for the 286. I believe that most of them lived their time with just 1MB.

The memory arrived today, I remove the old 4meg simms, attempt to fit these 16meg modules and they wont fit! I google "how to install 30 or 72 pin simms" and they say to install at 45 degrees, I put my old 1meg simm back in and it slots straight in, something is not right.

Not right alright, the 16meg simms are about 1mm too wide to fit in the slot! I grab a chainsaw file as thats the only suitable tool I have on hand and decide to file away the opposite side that does'nt have the notch, one by one and a bit of trial and error and they are all seated in place.

I plug the computer in and turn it on, long and low beeeeeepp, followed by two quick beeps, no screen, I assume something is not right with the ram, for the next hour and a half I remove, refile,clean and reinstall the simms to no avail, I reinstall the 1meg simms and I get the same sounds, WTF is going on?

I look at my plasma TV and it suddenly occurs to me, my input label "Computer" is for hdmi1, I then select "pc" and the screens shows the usual cmos battery error, wait just a minute I figure, maybe the ram does work I just had it on the wrong bloody input!!!!!

Reinstall the 16meg simms, boot it on, and it works!!! , that long beep is the ram test and once it hits about the first 10meg its one long continous beep all the way until 065280kb is tested, which takes a few seconds, I log into the bios to redetect the hard disk and boot into dos, testing himem memory takes about 30 seconds now........ Total memory is 65,536k, 64,857k free

So their you go, you can run 64meg in a 386, hell I dont see why I could'nt add another 64meg, the downside would be himem taking 60 seconds to test the memory.

The memtest of himem is one of the things I switch off at once if I use himem. It already annoyed me when it was introduced.
Just add a /testmem:off as parameter.

I wonder if the whole 64 MB get cached by your 128 kB L2 or what your L2 cacheable size is.

Usually this is written in the BIOS of the 386 at the page where you can configure the memory waitstates.
There should be a list of memory locations and block sizes for caching...

I also tried 16MB simms in a board of mine with the same chipset. A friend has 8 16mb simms and thought to give it a try. A month ago I also found it's manual, and it said, maximum amount of memory 32MB. So we tested the 8x16MB, and it posted fine, however it recognized only one bank, so it was 64MB. But it's nice, if you consider it should accept only 8x4MB simms. But I believe that soyo of yours should be ok to see 128. But it's too much for a 386. On my own 386/40 right now I have 8MB. And it works fine. I think I should better concentrate on finding 60ns simms to replace the 70ns I've got right now, rather than filling it with large amount of RAM...

What real-world difference would 10ns faster memory have?
Just curious... 😁