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Grex Hardware Item 194: RAM PC 133 SDRAM 256x2 problem. BIOS Post goes up only to 184MB on one stick.
Entered by vivekm1234 on Mon Mar 26 13:08:37 UTC 2007:

My PC is a Celeron 400 Mhz with 256MBx2 133Mhz RAM sticks. Recently my apps
started crashing so i enabled my BIOS POST check. The trouble is with one
stick of RAM where the POST shows 184MB instead of 256MB. I don't want to
junk the PC, but getting new RAM is going to be difficult.

What i wanted to know was:
1. How i might clean the gold contacts properly?
2. Can i buy new SDRAM at a higher clock speed and use that?
My mobo actually uses PC 66 Mhz so my PC 133 Mhz SDRAM is 
anyway rated for a higher speed but it works fine.
3. Is the problem likely to be a contact problem or is
one of the chips fried. It uses 8x2 16MB chips on each side
of the RAM stick. My BIOS count goes upto 184MB which means
it's not able to address 4-5 of those 16MB chips which makes
me suspect it's a contact problem. The gold isn't shiny all
through, instead there are dark patches on the gold where contact with the
slot was made. I'm wondering if there is a way to make the gold all shiny
with no dark patches.

6 responses total.

#1 of 6 by vivekm1234 on Mon Mar 26 14:44:32 2007:

Can i use a PC 133 MHz SDRAM with a PC xxx SDRAM where xxx>133.

#2 of 6 by vivekm1234 on Mon Mar 26 14:45:19 2007:

Also, can dust damage the PC? I'm thinking that if i had left that fing thing
alone i wouldn't be having any problems!

#3 of 6 by arthurp on Tue Mar 27 13:33:25 2007:

It's probably a fried chip.  You could lightly polish the contacts with
a pencil eraser.  Standard static discharge precautions.  You should be
able to use PC100 ram no problem.  Newer PC133 ram may not want to go
that slow.  PC100 should be very cheap from ebay or pricewatch.com.

#4 of 6 by vivekm1234 on Tue Mar 27 14:42:54 2007:

Thanks man! I already tried rubbing with a soft eraser and it failed to revive
the dead critter. USD 29$ approxi for a 256MB stick. Swindle i say but Ebay
doesn't ship to .in, a pox on them.

#5 of 6 by arthurp on Thu Mar 29 20:49:51 2007:

Ah, yes.  Prices could be wildly different over there.  That sucks.
You should google for memtest86 and get it or one of it's variants.  It
is a great utility for testing memory in a computer.  Then if/when you
get a new stick of RAM you can be confident that it is healthy right
away.

#6 of 6 by gull on Fri Apr 13 00:27:41 2007:

SDRAM has gotten more expensive since the market switched to DDR.  I 
suspect it's not being manufactured in the same volumes anymore.

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