BIOS doesn't recognize more than 32 MB(old P1 machines)

[Klaus-P]

Hello all,

Sometimes i'm running two old Pentium (a 75 and a 133 MHz) computers.
I tried to install more memory BUT unfortunately the BIOS refuses to recognize it.
Is there any known way or method, f.i. updating, flashing, etc.
these old BIOS-ses so that more than 32 MB could be recognized and being active??
Or does this look like a strict hardware limit?

Thanks for any hints !

[Starscream]

It's likely a hardware limit.

First what kind of ram are you trying to install, edo or sd?

A lot of old socket 7 motherboards just won't work with dimms bigger than 32 megs. You should still be able to add 2 32 meg sticks of pc 66 ram though, I believe most of the chipsets only recognize double sided dimms properly as well (chips on both sides of the ram stick).

[Klaus-P]

It is called EDO DRAM by the BIOS, 4 memory chip banks on the machines
(two different old motherboards, offhand i don't know which socket)
I've tried to install 2x16 meg + 2x8 - result: 32 meg
or 1x32 meg + 1x16meg result 32 meg.
OR 2x16 result 16 meg
The Bios seems to count at best 8 meg/bank.

An other old board with an AMD 586 (133) and Socket 3 however
could actually work (documentation) with 128 meg and
was running with 64 meg, but this beast now is
unwilling to boot at all after a serious trouble with a graphics card, the boot interrupt
seems to point to some nonsense, the system crashes without an error code. The BIOS setup
is the only program that i can run with this board and enjoy 64 or more memory.

[Starscream]

Originally posted by Klaus-P
I've tried to install 2x16 meg + 2x8 - result: 32 meg
or 1x32 meg + 1x16meg result 32 meg.
OR 2x16 result 16 meg


That's strange, edo should be in matched pairs (2x16, 2x8, etc) so it's no surprise that when you were putting in one 32 and one 16 things weren't right. Having 2x16 + 2x8 should be giving you 48 megs of ram. You could try changing the order put the 8 meg sticks where the 16 meg ones are and vice versa. If that doesn't work it's likely that the board just can't recognize anything more than 32 megs of ram.