? about my OLD computer

[DedHed]

hey!

my 133 pentium only had 16MB ram. so i decided to upgrade. i got two 16 MB IDE cards and tried installing them, and now it only counts to 24 something on the boot up, and WIN also only recognizes 24MB.

i tried moving them around and the old "switcharoo" trick with them and NOTHING!

so now that's 2-4mb , and 2-16mb cards and it's only noticing 24? what the?


i thought this memory only worked in pairs???

HELP

Dennis

[Nagel]

Its possible only one of the 16 MB chips is bad. Try just a pair, both the 16's, both the 4's, maybe (if you are lucky) try a 16 and a 4. Eventually you will find the bad ram chip.

If not, is it to spec? Like, is it PC133, where your comp can only support PC100? It's generally not good to mix PC100 and PC133, although most PC133 are backwards compatible to PC100 mobos.

just a few thoughts.

[Edited by Nagel on 05-08-2001 at 11:42 AM]

[Ophidia]

It sounds to me like one of your 16MB chips is bad as well. Try what Nagel said and you should be able to find the bad chip.
Since you have a P-133, I'm assuming that it is EDO SIMM memory that you are using. In this case FSB (Front Side Bus) speed should not be an issue (in the PC100, 100 is the FSB speed-- 100MHZ, in PC133, it's 133 MHZ). It's a bad chip (unless your motherboard does not support more than 24 MB, though I doubt that, but it is possible :) ).
Good luck
Chris

[DedHed]

thanks a lot,

i think that computer might just find it's way to the dumpster!

it sucks. now it's not recognizing the sound card, giving BLUE SCREEN errors, etc etc!

a guy wants to sell me an 800mhz pentium machine that's loaded for $600. hmmmmm

i may do that.

thanks for your help though,

you can't polish a terd- Butthead

Dennis

[Mark]

Many of the old sim chips have to be installed in pairs, or every other slot.

[Ophidia]

Yep-- one bank = 2 chips. I think the sizes of the chips in each bank have to match, too, don't they?
Chris

[hartman]

DedHed,

Where did you get the memory? If you have a total of 4 memory slots and you had 16mb (4mb x 4 =16mb) and you pulled 2 and replaced with a 16mb kit you really only have 2 x8mb for 16mb total. This is why you get only 24mb, slots 1-2 16mb, slots 3-4 8mb for a total of 24mb.

These old systems only work in pairs, if the system boots then the memory is good, most system boards do diags during boot and will beep is bad memory. If it boots and then crashes from the OS then you might have an error somewhere in the memory that is hosed.

If you want to get a quick cheap upgrade and have a little DIY skill you could upgrade for cheap. If you have a "generic system" now with a standard case and system board you can do a few upgrades to get a quick upgrade.

Hartman

[Ophidia]

Or build your own using an AMD T-bird processor-- more power for less money with AMD, plus if you build you own you know what's in it and can make it exactly like you want it. You should be able to build a really nice system for around 800 (w/o monitor)- unless you are an avid gamer and need the newest super powerful graphics card.
Think about it-- most modern motherboards are pretty much plug and play with no jumpers you need to set.

Plus: <b>It's Fun!!!!</b>
Chris

[hartman]

DedHed,

Here is a great DIY system use it to compare

Intel P3 933EB 133FSB CPU----------------166.00
(2) 128mb PC133 Micron mem---------------75.00
Supermicro system board PIIISCD----------110.00
Supermicro case SC501-A (ATX)------------95.00
MILLENIUM G450 32M DUALHEAD, AGP 4x----90.00
Pioneer slot DVD 12x CD 40x --------------100.00
3COM 3C905CX-TXNM PCI network----------40.00
IBM Deskstar 15GB ATA/100 15GB 7200rpm--96.00
Soundblater Live Platinum ver 5.1----------135.00
Floppy ------------------------------------15.00

Total 922.00 plus maybe a little S/H

This is a good system with only name brand stuff.

Hartman

[DedHed]

i was just telling my co-workers that i was thinking of building my won computer.

hartman, if i give you the model no. on my lil 133, could you tell if it's upgradable? or will it be just as cheap to get a new case?

that's a nice system you put together, thanks for doing it. but i won't need a computer that nice for a LONG time.

the max i would need would be:

800 MHz chip
128MB ram
DVD ROM
Seperate Writer
middle end sound and video cards.

all i do is get on the buletin board! well, and run the winamp player.

if i decide to build one could i e-mail you guys with questions?

from owning crappy computers so long, i'm good with taking out broke stuff and replacing it with good stuff! like memory, drives and various cards. could you recommend a good book about upgrading or building your own?

well, i'm out of questions now!

thanks again

Dennis

[Nagel]

Dedhead,

More then most likely if thats a PI 133 you WILL need a new case, and at minimum a power-supply if you really wanna push it and keep your case. The newer AMD chips and the intel chips use different power, and different power connectors. The newer motherboards have softpower, and your P133 I'm assuming you get to see that wonderful "It is now safe to turn off your computer" screen and then flick the switch. Softpower cuts that part out, when you click shutdown, the system shuts itself off. Only need to manually turn the PC on, never off.

do the case. Then get your old machine working, slap in a PCI network card in both machines, and use the old machine as a spare / hard drive farm. I have my most recent upgrades dedicated to that, and anything 386 or below is disassembled now. The farm includes:

P 90 - 16 megs ram
2 x 500 meg drives

P 120 - 64 megs ram
2 X 1 gig drives, CDRom & 500 meg drive

P 166 - 64 megs ram
2 x 5 gig drives, 2 X 10 gig drives

PII 233 - 150 megs ram (main machine)
2 X 20 gig, 2 X 30 gig, CD & CDRW on SCSI

All networked, and the spares come in handy for network gameplay or sharing the internet. Granted, they aren't all the fastest out there, but they still work, right?


btw, once the reef lets go of my wallet long enough, I'm gettin one of them badboy AMD chips. They pummel intel now, and all the machines above are intel cause I loved intel. To make a long story short, an 800 or 900 intel is just that, 800 or 900, when tested with a benchmark verifier. An 800 or 900 AMD thunderbird can be 800-925, or 900-1ghz. You heard it right, you could buy a 900 and be runnin perfectly inline at 1ghz. AMD has a different QC method, intel has minimum and maximum setpoints, AMD only has minimum. Anything from the 800 assembly line that tests at 800 OR ABOVE is passed, while on the intel line if its like 805mhz it gets destroyed and sent back.

Test it out, we have on over 60 systems, both intel and AMD, and right now, AMD is ahead in the race, and will be for a while I think.

[hartman]

DedHed,

I always build my own systems, if you just want a total quick fix you can buy an over-drive PII 333Mhz chip for 80 bucks and them buy 4 32mb SIMMs for about $100.00. All you do is pull out the old 133Mhz processor and drop in the new one. So for less than 200.00 US you can give that system a little more life.

If you want to do any more than that, start with all new parts. I would gladly help you. The reason I have 933 over an 800Mhz is that it cost only $20.00 more. You could drop $40.00 on the G450 buy going with the single head 16MB model and $40.00 by going with only the SB live Plat. Also if you don't have a network or cable/dsl you can drop the NIC. Saving you a total of $100.00 Lowering the memory is not worth it, you can never have too much :)

Feel free to email me,

Hartman

[DedHed]

thanks a lot guys!

i talked to "the computer guy" today. he says that he will sell me a computer he built for $600.

here it goes

pentium 800MHZ
128MB PC133 RAM
15GB HD
ati video with 16MB
some sound card?
writer
cd-rom

but the kicker is: he will give me $75 for my old computer, and let me pay out the rest over three months! cool dude huh?

see, that's just what i needed. cause, it would be hard for me to come up with like 900 or 1000 $. unless i change my mind, that's what i will go with. he will even warranty it himself for one year!!! the guys has been in business for several years around here. i trust him.

if i change my mind, i will definitely be back on here asking your guys questions!

thanks so much!

Dennis

[Edited by DedHed on 05-09-2001 at 05:11 PM]

[Nagel]

Not a bad deal. The ATI card is a Rage? or All In Wonder? All In Wonders are great for video dumps and watching TV on your computer.

Just for reference, do you guys have computer shows near you? Like in an exposition hall or something?

At a recent one near me we got my fiancee a nice setup for $660 including tax, and I am even setup with the big wholesalers and couldnt do it cheaper! (how the heck do the guys at shows get away with charging so little over wholesale pricing, I'll never know)

AMD Athlon 900
256MB PC133 Ram
20 GB HDD
Cheapo soundcard and video card
54X CD, 8X CDRW
Case, keyboard and mouse, everything except the monitor.

Its not as upgradable as I would like it to be, but it fits her purposes exactly. (personally I like video and sound to be handled OFF the motherboard, not included with it)


Good luck with the upgrade!

[hartman]

DedHed,

Sounds like a good deal but the devil is in the details. Questions you should ask.

1) Who makes the system board, Max memeory, # of PCI slots, is there and AGP video part and is it 4x. IDE is ultra66 or ultra100, are there USB ports.

The system board I listed has the following
2 ATA Ultra/66 IDE channels
5 PCI slots
1 4x AGP
1 One AMR (Audio Modem Riser) slot
1GB of memory
2 USB, wake on LAN,
Intel 820 chipset
MADE IN the USA
2) What is the power supply in the case? 175W or 200W etc..

3) Who makes the IDE drive and what is it? ATA Ultra/66 or Ultra/100 and what are the RPMs? the higer the better 10K is better but 7200rpm is min.

The Drive i listed was
IBM ATA Ultra/100 15GB 7200rpm

4) Is the processor an Intel 800Mhz EB? EB is coppermine and faster than the standard. Also the proccessor needs to be a 133Mhz to use a 133Mhz front side bus.

All three things need to match to get the benfit
processor, system board, and memory all need to be 133Mhz or it will default to the lowest.

5) Is the video card AGP?? and is it 2x or 4x. Also if you ever plan to watch DVD's on your system make sure the card comes with a DVD driver

Today you should only use AGP for video, it gives the most bag for the buck. Matrox for 2D makes great cards and has drivers for every OS and the update them offen.

6) Is the CD-ROM/RW IDE also and if so are there 2 IDE bus on the system board? You want to have the drive and cd on diffrent bus if you plan to burn from the drive. Also you want to know that buffer size on the drive the bigger the better.

The Pioneer CD/DVD is a sweet drive. ATA Ultra/66 and is slot feed so no stupid tray to break later. They have a ton of models and you can get an one.

6) You said you want to do MP3's so your sound card is very important and you should not skimp. The SB lives Plat supports 4 speakers and is a great sound card. The new 5.1 version comes with a remote and a drive bay kit so you can access it from the front of your computer.

Hartman

[Ophidia]

As far as the AMD processors being overclocked, my aMD T-Bird 900 is ovecloicked to 1100 with no problems whatsoever. So if you go AMD, and get a decent motherboard that has bios that allow it, you can get a really reasonably priced processor (I see at pricewatch.com you can get my processor for under 100 dollars) you can have a very speedy machine for cheap!
And as for benchmarks, my machine benchmarks faster than a Pentium 4 1500 mHz in every aspect except memory speed (p4's have 400 mHz bus speed). And the processor was 100 bucks rather than 600!
Chris

[Corpus Callosum]

DedHed,

Instead of buying that 600 dollar 800mhz computer I would build your own. My sister was in need of a simple computer just for internet and doing reports on so I built her one for $490 (got most of the stuff from www.newegg.com )

900mhz,
good motherboard with some nice features including supporting USB2,
256 MB PC133 ram,
17" monitor,
32MB video card w/GPU,
20GB 7200 rpm hard drive,
56x cdrom drive,
floppy drive,
nice keyboard and nice mouse,
4-channel sound card,
30 buck Nice fan/heatsink combo for the cpu,
and a nice case w/ 2 fans (built into the actual case the way I like it) and with a 350 watt power supply.

I think even though shipping came out to 60 dollars it was still a good deal.

[Ewan]

Originally posted by hartman
DedHed,


3) Who makes the IDE drive and what is it? ATA Ultra/66 or Ultra/100 and what are the RPMs? the higer the better 10K is better but 7200rpm is min.




Hartman, where are you getting 10000 rpm IDE drives?!?

I just setup Raid 0 on my new machine with UATA 133 drives at 7200 rpm/each. The raid is noticably faster...

I though 10000 rpm drives were only available in SCSI. Where you you get 'em and what's the price difference?

thanks,

E.

[TimberTDI]

Forget about building your own PC. Check out this awesome deal at TigerDirect.com (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?sku=G152-1000%20P) <P>You Get all this for only$699 <BR>
Pentium 4 1.6GHz Processor
128MB DDR Memory
20GB Hard Drive
24x10x40x CD-RW
56k v90 Fax Modem/10/100 NIC
32 MB GeForce 2 MX200
16550 Serial, Parallel, 6 USB Ports (2 in Front)
Microsoft XP
Internet Keyboard & Logitech Optical Mouse
Onboard Audio Powered by Premium AC97 Chipset
6 Bay Case/160 wat Power Supply
Floppy Drive
Microsoft Works 2002
Norton Antivirus
Roxio Easy Cd Creator and CD-R Discs
ONE YEAR FREE AOL A $287 Value
One year parts and labor

[Gnarly Reefer]

Originally posted by Jazzy171
Forget about building your own PC. Check out this awesome deal at

www.dell.com

They too have a $699 machine which I think is comparable to this one, they have financing and I think they offer a 3 year warranty and send a guy to your house to fix it if you have problems. They also have some of the best customer service in the industry, you would be getting a name that is trusted, and it comes in Black...

Thank you,
Gnarly Reefer

[Corpus Callosum]

If you are not building your own computer I agree that Dell has excellent customer service (atleast in my experiences).

[DedHed]

I had forgot about this old post. I'm still thinking about buying another computer tho!

I will probably go with one of the deals the big guys have... like dell or gateway! I have a dell now, and i love it! I know there is mixed feedback from both companies, but both have some very good deals right now!

thanks so much

[TimberTDI]

YOU GOTTA GET A DELL!!