memory for Dell c1998

[Tom]

Hi All
I've been given a Pentium II Dell PC (Dimension XPS R450) that seems
to work OK - but it only has 128mb of RAM - there are 2 free memory
slots and one only in use. The single memory module has on it (with
other numbers) MT Singapore PC100-322-620 - does this mean anything to
anyone and is it possible to get some more RAM for it...eBay or
elsewhere. Is it obvious what sort of memory this is?

The must be loads of PCs of this vintage that have been discarded.

Thanks.
Roy

 

[Paul]

Hi All
I've been given a Pentium II Dell PC (Dimension XPS R450) that seems
to work OK - but it only has 128mb of RAM - there are 2 free memory
slots and one only in use. The single memory module has on it (with
other numbers) MT Singapore PC100-322-620 - does this mean anything to
anyone and is it possible to get some more RAM for it...eBay or
elsewhere. Is it obvious what sort of memory this is?

The must be loads of PCs of this vintage that have been discarded.

Thanks.
Roy

The short answer is, go to crucial.com or kingston.com , as they have
a search engine and you can look up the RAM that will work with
thousands of different computers.

The claim here, is you can use three slots of 128MB each. (Kingston's
search engine doesn't go back as far as Crucial, because as far as
I know, Kingston isn't selling SDRAM now.)

http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.aspx?model=Dimension XPS R Series

I can find references to the chipset used on the motherboard, and relate
what happened to my computer. According to this, the chipset is 440BX.

http://forums.speedguide.net/showthread.php?t=24901

You might be able to verify that, with programs like CPUZ, Everest, or
Belarc Advisor.

http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4181.html
http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

I have a motherboard with 440BX chipset, and it has four memory slots.
I bought 4 x 256MB of PC133 RAM. (The reason for doing this, is it is
known that the chipset in fact supports more RAM than originally
documented.) I found with 4 sticks or 3 sticks, I had video card
freezing, like there was a problem with the AGP slot. With 2 sticks,
the computer was quite stable. And that gives a total of 512MB of
RAM.

My experiment was carried out with CT32M64S4D7E sticks, and two
of those worked. In my case, I could not add any more RAM than
that, but I understand others may have different results. What
is really puzzling, is just how stable the thing is with two
sticks. I've run Prime95 on it for sixteen hours without an
error.

http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.aspx?model=P2B-S

Anyway, that should give you some ideas. You can go cheap,
and fill it with 3 x 128MB, or you could try 2 x 256MB if
you're feeling brave. Note that the 256MB sticks on Crucial
are different than some other ones sold online, in that they
are the "low density" type. If you buy a 256MB stick for a
440BX, it should have 16 chips total on it. Some 256MB
sticks have only 8 chips, meaning each memory chip is twice
as dense, and the 440BX needs one more address bit that it
doesn't have, to address an 8 chip memory stick. So if
you didn't get the Crucial one, at least make sure the
module you get has 16 chips for a total of 256MB.

There is a similar discussion here. The person in this
posting, had tested 2x256MB in the R450. RAM density
also gets mentioned (the 16 chips total thing).

http://groups.google.ca/group/alt.sys.pc-clone.dell/msg/5c5df9ffc1d2ee8e?dmode=source

Paul

 

[Benjamin Gawert]

* Tom:

I've been given a Pentium II Dell PC (Dimension XPS R450) that seems
to work OK - but it only has 128mb of RAM - there are 2 free memory
slots and one only in use. The single memory module has on it (with
other numbers) MT Singapore PC100-322-620 - does this mean anything to
anyone and is it possible to get some more RAM for it...eBay or
elsewhere. Is it obvious what sort of memory this is?

Yes, it is standard SDRAM PC100 memory. The XPS R450 has an i440BX
chipset which means you can put up to 768MB in it (3x 256MB). If you opt
for 256MB modules you explicitly need some that are specifically
compatible with the BX chipset.

Benjamin

 

[Tom]

Many thanks for all the info - its a great help and probably stopped
me making a major mistake in buying memory chips - which was my plan.

I have seen some of the SDRAM chips I thought would be OK on eBay but
my Dell model number wasn't specifically mentioned - nearest is the
XPS T450 (mine is the R450) - I assume this must be model with another
chipset - is this right? or would they possibly work? Currently on
eBay as item #360044519616 (it does say (with other info) low density
and Non-ECC, unbuffered)

btw. does anyone know what size hard disc can be put in these XPS R450
Dells - current one is about 13GB and sounds like it may be on the way
out (although scandisc does not show any errors as yet).

Rgds,
Roy

 

[Paul]

Many thanks for all the info - its a great help and probably stopped
me making a major mistake in buying memory chips - which was my plan.

I have seen some of the SDRAM chips I thought would be OK on eBay but
my Dell model number wasn't specifically mentioned - nearest is the
XPS T450 (mine is the R450) - I assume this must be model with another
chipset - is this right? or would they possibly work? Currently on
eBay as item #360044519616 (it does say (with other info) low density
and Non-ECC, unbuffered)

btw. does anyone know what size hard disc can be put in these XPS R450
Dells - current one is about 13GB and sounds like it may be on the way
out (although scandisc does not show any errors as yet).

Rgds,
Roy

At the bottom of the advert, it says the memory is low density (implying
it should work and low means there are 16 chips total on the module).
Contact the seller and ask for the total chip count on the module.

As for the list of computers, you could try looking them up and
see if any have a 440BX chipset.

On my 440BX, I think I stuffed a Promise Ultra card in it, to both
speed up the disk interface a bit, and remove the capacity limit.
The Promise has its own BIOS chip, and Ultra133 was standardized
at the same time as 48 bit LBA (for drives over 137GB). So something
like this would work. (I haven't actually tested the 48 bit feature,
as the largest drive I've had in that machine is 120GB. But I understand
it works.)

PROMISE ULTRA133 TX2 PCI IDE $40 (two IDE connectors, up to four disks)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816102007

If that is too expensive, a SIL0680 based card might work. I've
never tried one of these.

SYBA SD-ATA133I PCI IDE Ultra Controller Card (Non RAID) - Retail $17
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124001

This is the 0680 chip.

http://www.siliconimage.com/products/product.aspx?id=31

A card like that will allow improved bandwidth, at least until the PCI
bus bandwidth gets in the way.

Paul

 

[Tom]

Many thanks for the extremely helpful and detailed replies - its very
much appreciated.

The seller of the memory on eBay --256MB PC100/133 168-PIN SDRAM
DIMM-- has replied that its not compatible with my XPS R450 - which is
probably because the official Dell info is that only the 128mb modules
are allowable......

Thanks for the info also on the ATA 133 PCI IDE card - in the UK
Maplins supply one --ATA/133 Host Adaptor see link for details @
£19.99:-
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=33044&&source=14&doy=29m7

The original hard disc in the Dell has now completely gone and I've
temporarily replaced it with a Maxtor I had spare from another PC -
spare because its probably unreliable. Its a 130GB model - partitioned
earlier to have 3 different O/S (selected by BootMagic) on 3 primary
partitions with 2 logical partitions within an extended partition. The
partition with ME on it runs perfectly and I can see the logical
partitions - disc space visible from ME totals about 50GB - I assumed
that the limit through the bios would be 30GB ....

Afterwards I did upgrade the bios to version A13 (it was running from
original on version A09) - I wonder what difference this will make?

Thanks for all the help.
Roy

 

[Paul]

Many thanks for the extremely helpful and detailed replies - its very
much appreciated.

The seller of the memory on eBay --256MB PC100/133 168-PIN SDRAM
DIMM-- has replied that its not compatible with my XPS R450 - which is
probably because the official Dell info is that only the 128mb modules
are allowable......

Thanks for the info also on the ATA 133 PCI IDE card - in the UK
Maplins supply one --ATA/133 Host Adaptor see link for details @
£19.99:-
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=33044&&source=14&doy=29m7

The original hard disc in the Dell has now completely gone and I've
temporarily replaced it with a Maxtor I had spare from another PC -
spare because its probably unreliable. Its a 130GB model - partitioned
earlier to have 3 different O/S (selected by BootMagic) on 3 primary
partitions with 2 logical partitions within an extended partition. The
partition with ME on it runs perfectly and I can see the logical
partitions - disc space visible from ME totals about 50GB - I assumed
that the limit through the bios would be 30GB ....

Afterwards I did upgrade the bios to version A13 (it was running from
original on version A09) - I wonder what difference this will make?

Thanks for all the help.
Roy

The onboard BIOS on this one may not be bug-free. There was some issue
in the past, with the number of optical drives this would support
(ITE8212). Actually, all the IDE controllers will have some issue or
another (Vista support), and lots of research is recommended before
any purchase. (Find someone with the same environment as you've got,
who has already tried it.)

http://www.maplin.co.uk/images/full/a77af_new.jpg

As for BIOS upgrades, they are most valuable when they come with
release notes. If Dell documents what is fixed by a BIOS change,
then the customer is in a better position to judge whether to
take a chance on a flash upgrade. Sometimes, an upgrade
bricks the computer. And so you have to understand what
the options are, if that should happen.

As long as the BIOS chip is not soldered in place, you can
purchase a replacement chip from badflash.com . To use their
service, you have to be able to point them to a flash file
to program in the chip. For prebuilt computers, the
download includes more than just the BIOS itself, and
badflash may not be able to deal with the "fluff" of
the installer that comes with the BIOS download.
What badflash wants, is just the flash file itself, which
should be a power_of_two in size (131072 bytes or 262144
bytes and so on). So you'd at least want to understand
whether the BIOS chip is socketed, before attempting
a BIOS upgrade. The best upgrade procedures would be
based on a DOS boot floppy - there are tools that
flash a BIOS while in Windows, but then there are better
odds of bricking the computer that way.

Some BIOS are released to fix obscure problems, that only
0.001% of the user population are seeing. And that is why
you want to see the release notes, to understand whether the
upgrade buys you anything or not.

Paul