This is... quite an odd problem, and it boils down to this: All sticks, no matter what size, or speed, report at 50% of their actual size. 512 becomes 256, 256 becomes 128. While I have enough sticks I can still get 1GB of SD133 in there, this is quite a confusing issue. What could I possibly attempt?
The BIOS is dated 2000 so it's probably the original one, but I can't find a newer one online. Anyone got one?
The model number is S1834, right? There are two versions of BIOSes on Tyan's FTP server, 103c and 105.
They have an FTP!?!
oh thank god for you.
What's the best utility to use to flash it?
E: AWDflash is on their ftp, question asnwered :p
You could still have tested whether the number of chips per module and/or whether they are single-sided or double-sided would have made a difference...
I don't have and have never seen a 512mb stick that's single sided.
wrote:I don't have and have never seen a 512mb stick that's single sided.
Well, if the BIOS was dated 2000, it would have been from before the time 512 Mb sticks became commonplace. Most PC's back then had no more than 128-256 Mb RAM on a single stick, and those exist as single sided sticks.
The later BIOS update added compatibility with RAM sticks released later on. That's pretty normal for systems released around that time.
wrote:I don't have and have never seen a 512mb stick that's single sided.
They do exist, I have one of them.
The problem with high capacity memory sticks is that the compatibility is, lets say, rather questionable. As a rule of thumb you can operate under the assumption that an Intel based system will have issues with unusually high capacity memory modules. The most well known instance of this is the low/high density module issue primarily found on DDR2 and 3 modules, where peculiarities of the Athlon64/phenom/FX Memory controller and memory addressing is used to offer effectively double the capacity normally available on those modules (those modules are of questionable quality however and many boards don't support them either). AMD has pretty much always been more flexible when it comes to things like this at the cost of considering standards more like a set guidelines, while Intel is rather strict about those standards.
While I have seen an intel system running with a 512MB (double sided) SD ram module (Celeron 1200, don't remember the chipset) that was the only Intel system I have seen to do so. From my experience those are somewhat rare. I had much better luck with Socket A (K7) boards and 512MB SD-Ram modules.
The board you have is a workstation board and those are generally much more strict with the memory they run with than consumer boards because of validation and support policies, so I am really not surprised about the lack of support for larger memory.
Thanks for the help, actually turns out the instability was caused by the CPU retainer forcing the shitty heatsink to slide, exposing one of the processors which led to heat failures. No retainer, been solid for two days now.
However I have a new problem! Only under Win9x, I lose system stability when I instal the VIA chipset drivers. Which versions should I try, and is there something I'm missing here? I might not bother, I plan on dualbooting with 2k anyway and anything so old it needs 9x isn't going to care about it.
E: Hold on, 98SE /has/ chipset drivers already, I figured it wouldn't. Well shit that was a waste of time- AGP accel. even works.
