Hardware Analysis - P133 SDRAM 256 RAM shows only 128 MB on abit BX6-V2

Re: P133 SDRAM 256 RAM shows only 128 MB on abit BX6-V2

Xtonic 007 — 2004-03-16T06:40:15-05:00

It may be the same thing just reversed. Your board might only read single sided ram.
That board can handle 3 gigs of ram, 1 gig in each slot. Which means if you had a 1 gig chip double sided it would have to read 512mb a side, therefore it should read 512mb a side no problem. So if its only reading a 512mb double sided as 256mb it�s only taking 1 side of the ram, I would say try using single sided 512mb. The board you have is a lot more advanced then the board talked about in this discussion, it should be able to use all the newly designed single sided sdram. Ask MSI if that board can support double sided ram.

Re: P133 SDRAM 256 RAM shows only 128 MB on abit BX6-V2

Wood Shaver — 2004-03-16T06:09:12-05:00

im having the same problem on my MSI 6562 pro2-c motherboard. I have a 256 single sided that works fine but i bought a 512 double-sided and it only reads 256. They're both PC133

Re: P133 SDRAM 256 RAM shows only 128 MB on abit BX6-V2

Xtonic 007 — 2004-03-16T05:23:42-05:00

Ok the answer to your question is in this post. I am not just guessing I am telling you for sure what the problem is because I have also encountered this issue. One of my networked systems is a P3 -450 with an asus P3BF motherboard; it has 4 slots max of 256mb in each slot for a total of a 1 gig. The board supports pc-100.
I have 3 256mb Pc-133 double-sided chips in the system with no problems. Almost any board that is pc-100 will support pc-133; it will just run at 100mhz instead of 133mhz.
I also had a 128mb pc-100 single sided in that same machine. No problem what so ever. All the rams are from different manufactures. You can usually mix and match with no problems. I then decided to max out my ram to 1 gig. I pulled out the 128mb and bought a brand new 256mb pc-133 ram chip single sided. When I booted the system it only read that ram as 128mb, I then removed the entire ram thinking compatibility issues and still only showed 128mb. What�s the problem? It's very simple, the newly designed sdram doesn�t work with a lot of boards because its single sided to save cost and up performance, however most of the P3 boards could only handle 8 ram chips on a single side (128mb), so if you have a 256mb ram double sided you would have 8 ram chips on each side reading 128mb on each side of the ram, the new ram only has 8 ram chips on one side but reads 256mb instead of double sided reading 128mb. Long story short to solve your problem sell that ram that you bought and buy 256mb pc-133 or pc-100 double-sided ram. Guaranteed to solve your problem. Most boards that have 4 ram slots have this same issue. Boards that have only 2 slots don't seem to run into this problem. Even if you find older ram thats 256mb single sided it will most likely work because it was designed differently then todays ram.
Best way to go is 256mb double sided for your board.

Re: P133 SDRAM 256 RAM shows only 128 MB on abit BX6-V2

Milan de Vries — 2004-01-27T10:53:01-05:00

Thanx! I'm checking it out...
In the mean time my search led me to alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.abit where lots of people seem to complain about problems with 256MB dimms in the BX6-2. I hope to find specific information or answers there..

btw: I am running a PIII-450 on the BX6-2 on my 4-year old (second) PC, which I plan to start using as a server. Looking for memory upgrades, I just bought a few cheap 256 MB SDRAMs without looking at specifications first..probably should have! Might consider changing the mobo now..

Re: P133 SDRAM 256 RAM shows only 128 MB on abit BX6-V2

daren evans — 2004-01-27T09:54:42-05:00

After looking at your processor spec I would suggest that you don't waste to much money on RAM.

Start saving those pennies.
In addition the Abit BX6 R2 has a history of the capacitors going bad - check out http://www.motherboardrepair.com/index.php?sec=faq

Re: P133 SDRAM 256 RAM shows only 128 MB on abit BX6-V2

daren evans — 2004-01-27T09:50:25-05:00

I used to have a BX6 R2 motherboard with the QR bios and it ran very well on a Crucial 256M SDRAM - I couldn't, however, run more than 1 oadditional no name dimm without niggles - I actually ran the Crucial on it's own as it was rated as two cas latency and the machine ran faster with just that one piece of RAM in it.

Crucial is a recommend.

Re: P133 SDRAM 256 RAM shows only 128 MB on abit BX6-V2

Milan de Vries — 2004-01-27T09:22:18-05:00

The solution to this problem (which I have encoutered also) is definitely not in the memory being single or double sided since the BX6-V2 supports both. Since most postings are rather old I wonder if anybody has found some more information to in the mean time...This problem is not uncommon among older mobo's as I understand and I would really like to know what I am up against before I turn to the (rather) expensive Crucial.com SDRAM for upgrades. Would it be that the answer lies in - as Ben suggests above - the board does not supporting all types of PC133 SDRAM, I wonder if anyone has ever asked ABIT on this...

Re: P133 SDRAM 256 RAM shows only 128 MB on abit BX6-V2

john enomous — 2004-01-15T04:56:26-05:00

well here's the skinny there are two types of memory that are pc133 rated one is called single sided the other is double sided both can be 256Mb but what it sound like u have is a double sided in a single sided board therefore it only see's one half of the memory installed so verify what the board supports and what kind of memory u bought if it is double sided it will work in most of the newer boards that are p3-fc-ppga.
hope this helps!!!

Re: P133 SDRAM 256 RAM shows only 128 MB on abit BX6-V2

Dave Collishaw — 2003-01-26T17:19:49-05:00

I'll find out how to i.d. ram visually and get back on this one.

Re: P133 SDRAM 256 RAM shows only 128 MB on abit BX6-V2

ben wilson — 2003-01-26T03:48:09-05:00

well to answer your question dave, i'm not positve that using pc133 on a pc100 board would cause these problems but if it did'nt why the hell would'nt kingston be trying to push the higher end ram making them more money?just a hunch i'm no ram engineer or anything but i think the ram on this board has to be PC100 except for a few exceptions.

-If I am wrong it would not be the first time

Re: P133 SDRAM 256 RAM shows only 128 MB on abit BX6-V2

p ng — 2003-01-26T00:53:45-05:00

so far i still don't understand why both kingston valueram and K-byte pc133 256MB shows only 128 MB on abit bx6-v2, and it also happens to an asus socket 370 board. the bios in my bx6-v2 is the latest version, the QR verison.

Re: P133 SDRAM 256 RAM shows only 128 MB on abit BX6-V2

Dave Collishaw — 2003-01-25T22:49:36-05:00

Been thinking,Ben.....
Dosn't pc 133 just mean that it is just tested/certified to run at the higher clock speed? Are there more issues to it than I thought? I've always bought pc 133 as opposed to 100 even if the box runs it at 100 as a future upgradeability option. I did once run a stick of pc100 at Cas 3 at 133 meg, so surely.......

Re: P133 SDRAM 256 RAM shows only 128 MB on abit BX6-V2

Dave Collishaw — 2003-01-25T20:34:48-05:00

Had the same prob on an Aopen AX6BC-EZ a short while ago. Assumed that because the ram was dirt cheap and from a dodgy supplier I had been short-changed. Thank you Ben for pointing out the obvious which didn't occur to me. Will try a bios update if there is one.

Re: P133 SDRAM 256 RAM shows only 128 MB on abit BX6-V2

ben wilson — 2003-01-25T19:26:14-05:00

did you read what i posted earlier?

Re: P133 SDRAM 256 RAM shows only 128 MB on abit BX6-V2

p ng — 2003-01-25T14:06:47-05:00

before i tried to install the 256MB PC133 ram, i had 4 rams in my motherboard, 3 of them are 64MB PC100 and the fourth one is 32MB, so a total of 224MB and XP running perfect on my machine. My plan was to take out the 32MB and install the 256MB pc133 with the rest of the three 64MB chip remains. but the motherboard somehow only recognize the 256MB as 128MB, so i took out all the rams and just to put in the 256MB but it makes no different. Initially i thought the Kingston ram was defective so i replaced it with the K-byte, but the same problem still coming out.

i tried the K-byte 128MB pc133 ram with the BX6-V2 board and it works fine. the memory count at POST shows 128 MB. the problem only happens to 256MB PC133 ram.