HP 5MP RAM weirdness

[Alan]

I have a new (to me) HP LaserJet 5MP. It came only with the minimal
built-in 3 Mb RAM. I suffered some memory overflow errors recently, so
I found a couple of IBM 8MB SIMMS and tried them.

Using either one in either slot registered the memory, giving me total
11 MB reported on the config page, but if I inserted both, I got an
error.

According to the manual, the error lights mean
"03: Unsupported memory size"

I swapped them around, no change.
Singly, fine; together dead.

According to the authoritative page at
http://www.shawnbehrens.de/hplist.htm
the 5MP should be able to take two 16MB SIMMs.

So is this just bad juju? Do I look for more old chips?

Also, when configuring the "Available PS memory" in Windows 2000
printer setting, I found this number poorly defined. According to some
sources, you're supposed to print the file "testps.txt" and use the
number from that.

It seemed weird that after adding 8MB this number was
"Max suggested VM (KB) 2086".

The default value (presumably corresponding to the 3 MB built in) was
700KB or so. So where has the other 7 MB gone...

 

[William R. Walsh]

Hi!

I suffered some memory overflow errors recently, so
I found a couple of IBM 8MB SIMMS and tried them.

According to the manual, the error lights mean
"03: Unsupported memory size"

This could be a limitation of the memory controller used in the printer.
I've seen other devices that were technically capable of taking pairs of
memory modules that were bigger than smaller modules which could only be
used one at a time.

According to the authoritative page at
http://www.shawnbehrens.de/hplist.htm
the 5MP should be able to take two 16MB SIMMs.

While perhaps it is more correct in some regards (telling things as they are
instead of how HP would like you to hear them) I don't know that you can
consider this authoritative information.

The default value (presumably corresponding to the 3 MB built in) was
700KB or so. So where has the other 7 MB gone...

It may be used for non-Postscript data, such as downloaded fonts, bitmapped
objects or even as a "scratch pad" for the printer's onboard processor.

William

 

[Alan]

Hi!



This could be a limitation of the memory controller used in the printer.
I've seen other devices that were technically capable of taking pairs of
memory modules that were bigger than smaller modules which could only be
used one at a time.


While perhaps it is more correct in some regards (telling things as they are
instead of how HP would like you to hear them) I don't know that you can
consider this authoritative information.

"Authoritative" because it's based on experiment, not specs, and has
been around for a few years and earned respect. Especially useful for
older printers with RAM of sizes and types not available at the time
of release.

And actually, HP's site:
"HP LaserJet 5MP printer: 3 MB standard RAM memory, two unused
universal SIMM slots, and total memory capacity of 35 MB."

But also, on rereading Shawn's site, I see that the 5MP, unlike the 4M
I had previously, doesn't require parity RAM.
The 8 MB SIMMS were parity. So it was apparently good luck that they
worked at all.

So I'm off to look for some 16 MB 70 ns non-parity SIMMs...