K7S5A Pro and RAM Modules

demonchaos916 · July 8th, 2004, 04:31 AM

I've had this K7S5A Pro motherboard since last year and I need some more RAM on it. I already have 512MB of RAM on it. And after one hour of searching for a RAM module compatible with this, I've had no luck. So does anyone know what Ram module I should buy? And where? Hopefully at a Fry's location??? And another hope of it being 512?

And is there anyway to increase the Video Memory? I have 128MB of it and I'm using NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200.

And I just signe up here so sorry if this is in the wrong place.

filipino · July 8th, 2004, 04:50 AM

hmm you can buy another 512 DDR PC133. about the videocard memory i dont think you can encrease the memory but i think you can overclock your GPU.

demonchaos916 · July 8th, 2004, 05:49 AM

Overclock? Is that like overloading/overdriving it? If it is, will it damage my video card (NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200) in any way?

The motherboard can only have one type of RAM on it at a time so it can't mix two kinds of RAM like DDR DIMM and DDR SDRAM. I have a DDR DIMM 512MB PC2100 (how slow is this?) RAM module on it right now so I would need another DDR DIMM module for the RAM. And it says it can have a max of 1GB RAM installed so if I have two 512MB RAM modules, that would be 1024 (1.24GB?). Would it still work only it won't use the extra 24 but only use the 1GB max?

I'm still searching around and I read on a site that increasing RAM doesn't increase speed alone by itself and I have to increase memory (on my hardrive) to increase sped as well. Is this true?

My computer already runs very fast and can load/run most of my games in the highest quality but SimCity 4 has my computer beat when I try to use the highest quality. So that's why I need more RAM. A better video card won't do much since SC4 isn't actually 3D making high-tech super video cards with all the 3D useless.

JPMiller · July 8th, 2004, 08:13 AM

OK... I think you may have been slightly mis-informed...
your motherboard supports 2 kinds of Ram... DDR or SDRam.... I personally think you will notice no difference in performance by adding more or faster memory...

There is no memory to increase on the harddrive.... there IS a 2 or 8 Meg cache available on different drives when you buy them...

That video card should be more than enough to handle that game at its highest settings... I could be wrong but that shouldnt be your problem...
I dont think overclocking it will help... someone please correct me if I'm wrong...

What exactly happens in the game when it is set at the highest resolutions? .....

To speed up your computer in general there are a few things you can do before going out and upgrading your hardware...
Flashing the bios to either the Cheepoman or the Honey bios can give you greater control over the front side bus speeds (FSB)
cleaning up your harddrive and defragging it can help... running Spybot and Adaware never hurt...
you can tweak your settings with XPSmoker...
here is a link to upgrading/tweaking that motherboard and flashing the bios...
http://www.ocworkbench.com/2002/ecs/k7s5aguide/

yeadon563 · July 8th, 2004, 08:19 AM

I overclocked my Pixelview Fx5200. Now it won't run in 3d mode anymore. Seems the fan died. Mavbe it was because of my overclock or a bum fan.

Yeadon563

Peter M · July 8th, 2004, 05:19 PM

K7S5A runs pretty much everything - SDR RAM or DDR RAM. Mind you, that's an OR. So if you got an SDR DIMM in there already, just get another SDR DIMM to go with it - the chipset supports any size as long as it's PC133 and unbuffered, non-ECC.

If you got DDR in there already, or want a performance improvement along with your RAM upgrade, put one or two DDR DIMMs in there. PC2100 is required, but the board won't mind if you put a faster rated DIMM in there.

In fact, I just come from upgrading a K7S5A from SDR to DDR - I put a PC3200 CL2.5 DIMM into it, and it's running at the board's most aggressive RAM timings, with a nice performance boost.

demonchaos916 · July 8th, 2004, 07:22 PM

I still have no idea what module to buy. I searched around on Kingston again and founs L7S5A but then right next to it it said stuff like v.1 so I'm assuming which version and I don't know which version pf K7S5A Pro I have. On the back cover of the manual it says Version 5.0L but I;m not sure if that's the manual version or the motherboard version.

Xould someone tell me the name of the module I should be buying and the place where I can probably find it?

And as for what happens when highest settings are chosen on SC4, my computer jsut can't handle it. The highest settings are for computers with good speed and I've set all my games on high and have had no problems until SC4 came along and kicked my computers butt.

Peter M · July 9th, 2004, 05:35 AM

You need to check whether you have SDR or DDR in there _now_, and then make up your mind along the facts I outlined above.

demonchaos916 · July 9th, 2004, 05:59 AM

I have DDR right now. So could you tell me the module/brand/name/picture of the PC3200 CL 2.5 DIMM that you used? I'm just hoping it'll make my computer better with the new module than just the normal PC2100 DIMM. I wnat to make sure the module I buy will work with my motherboard since I've had a bad experience buying upgrades that aren't compatible even though the specs match my motherboard.

Chuckiechan · July 9th, 2004, 10:58 AM

I have used Corsair PC 2700 (333 Mz) that I bought at Fry's (Fry's part # 3305372)
I used one stick of 512 Mb.

Other info on the sticker:

DDR 512 MB 2700 VS Corsair
64 x 64 cas. 2.5 333 MHz
184 Pin dimm
VS512MB333

And... it is still available for $ 82.50 from Fry's Outpost.com, which means it is probably in stock in the stores.

http://shop1.outpost.com/search?sear...11&submit.y=12

This worked fine for me in my K7S5A, OC's from a XP 1400 to a XP 1600.

Hope this helps...