New RAM Issue

racing_fire · August 17th, 2006, 02:33 AM

My mobo is a Albatron PX845PEV Pro.

Specs/Manuals/Pics: http://www.albatron.com.tw/english/i...w.asp?pro_id=6

There's 3 slots and 2 are grouped closer than the last. The manual said that only 2 sticks adding up to 1 gig are allowed in there and the 3rd can support a 1 gig stick (with a 2GB max).

So I had 2 512 sticks and I added a 1 gig today, but its only showing 1.5 gigs. Any ideas to correct it?

Thanks in advance.

-Kevin K.

him61 · August 17th, 2006, 03:07 AM

The 512's need to be farthest away from eachother if that's the case.

racing_fire · August 17th, 2006, 11:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by him61

The 512's need to be farthest away from eachother if that's the case.

So it should be 512 - 1 GB - 512??

him61 · August 17th, 2006, 01:38 PM

Yes. My guess is that the 2 outer DIMM slots were meant for a maximum of 512 MB each and the middle one is 1 GB max.

Usually dual channel RAM Slots in the motherboard are 2 over location wise. It would look like this on yours: (D=dual channel S= single)
D-S-D

So if you have it as 512-512-1024, the slot that the 1024 is in has a maximum of 512 MB so I'm guessing that it's only reading 512 MB.

racing_fire · August 21st, 2006, 02:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by him61

Yes. My guess is that the 2 outer DIMM slots were meant for a maximum of 512 MB each and the middle one is 1 GB max.

Usually dual channel RAM Slots in the motherboard are 2 over location wise. It would look like this on yours: (D=dual channel S= single)
D-S-D

So if you have it as 512-512-1024, the slot that the 1024 is in has a maximum of 512 MB so I'm guessing that it's only reading 512 MB.

I tried every possible setup and i can't get past 1.5 gigs :? And I'm almost positive they all work. Any ideas?

CalvinLuck · August 21st, 2006, 03:40 AM

Is it possible that one of the 512 mb stick doesn't work. Have you ever tried, only to put one stick at a time?
If all work, then the problem is not with the single stick.

From the manual, it says that dimm2 and dimm3 musn't be double sided and add up to total of 1 GB max. The slot nearest to the processor (center of motherboard) is dimm1 (max to 2 GB); dimm2 and dimm 3 are the one closest to the outer edge.
Surely, you can only put the 1 GB stick to dimm1 (cannot put it into dimm2 and dimm3.)

Edit -----
Double sided means having the chip on both sides of the stick, so 1 GB stick will be a double sided one. 512 MB or less will be one-sided.

racing_fire · August 21st, 2006, 11:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CalvinLuck

Is it possible that one of the 512 mb stick doesn't work. Have you ever tried, only to put one stick at a time? (If all works, then the problem is not with the single stick)

From the manual, it says that dimm2 and dimm3 musn't be double sided and add up to total of 1 GB max. The slot nearest to the processor (center of motherboard) is dimm1 (max to 2 GB); dimm2 and dimm 3 are the one closest to the outer edge.
Surely, you can only put the 1 GB stick to dimm1 (cannot put it into dimm2 and dimm3.)

That's what I read before... What does the actual "double-sided" thing mean?

racing_fire · August 24th, 2006, 04:04 AM

Turns out that one of my RAM sticks were bad. Earlier I tested each stick individually. 1 gig: Fine. First 512: Fine. Second 512: Windows wouldn't start. It just restarted before the Windows XP logo with the green animated bar. I couldn't get past that. So I took that one out and everything is better now. I had a lot of crashing before too, so that explains it.