I am putting together a Pentium II system for some old-school gaming and am having a bit of trouble with RAM.

I have an Intel PD440FX board (new, took it out of shrinkwrap ) and I have it completely set up but it failed POST. The beeped 3 times which the documentation indicates is "bad RAM."

I have some EDO memory in 32 MB SIMMs. I know they are non-parity/non-ECC, 5V and 60ns (based on the XXXXXX-60 on the chips) and the correct pin configuration yet the system doesn't seem to like them. I have tried populating just one bank, cleaning the terminals, putting in different combinations of chips but I am not really getting anywhere.

Tech information for the board is:

http://support.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/pd440fx/sb/cs-012043.htm

Any suggestions on what I might be missing?

Thanks

Matt

5/3/2007 3:34:11 PM

Don't those need to be in pairs?

Also, I have a lot of EDO sitting around I'll sell you!

5/3/2007 3:42:56 PM

Quote :

"I have tried populating just one bank"

I hope by one bank you mean two matching sticks. As Blind Hate mentioned, EDO RAM needs to be installed in pairs. The only combinations you should be trying are different matching pairs, one pair at a time.

5/3/2007 3:52:11 PM

i dont know about you, but id rather buy a working pII system for peanuts than worry about putting one together.

are youi 100% sure the ram is compatible? are the sticks too big for that system (doubtful, but possible). I was working on an old PII Dell recently and two 32mb (PC66) sticks were the largest it would accept. sounds like your PII is older than that one.

5/3/2007 3:52:56 PM

Quote :

"I hope by one bank you mean two matching sticks. As Blind Hate mentioned, EDO RAM needs to be installed in pairs. "

yeah, I paired them.

Quote :

"are youi 100% sure the ram is compatible?"

no. At this point I am pretty sure it isn't.

Quote :

"are the sticks too big for that system (doubtful, but possible)."

Intel claims this system supports 64MB SIMMs (max RAM is 256 which is 64x4).

Quote :

"Also, I have a lot of EDO sitting around I'll sell you!"

If I can confirm it works first, then sure!

Quote :

"i dont know about you, but id rather buy a working pII system for peanuts than worry about putting one together."

Yeah. I put together new machines all the time but trying to mix and match parts from the past didn't go nearly as well as I had planned.

5/3/2007 3:57:52 PM

I've got a toshiba tecra 8000 PII 266 laptop taking up space i'd part with for $50. only issue is that the battery holds no charge, so it has to be plugged in.

currently running with ubuntu 6.10

5/3/2007 4:08:56 PM