Windows 3.1 and additional RAM - gufunk

[jviers]

Greetings sages!

I have sent a friend 32 meg to replace his 8meg already existing in a 1995 486DX-80 Win3.1 machine. He installs the chips and BIOS reports new amount correctly, but Windows will not run (he says it just gives him some weird video pattern and hangs). He can put in one or both or move them around but results are no different. Luckily, he can take them out and replace them with the old chips and everything works. The new chips are 16meg 72-pin (same as old), but are not matched. I tested them on a Win98 machine before sending them and they worked fine, Windows ran fine. Any ideas? Does Win3.1 somehow remember the initial amount of memory and not allow additional unless one knows the secret? Best guess so far is the chips must be exact matches. Any help most appreciated! Cheers, Joel

[davidgsmith]

Hello,

Windows 3.x does not record any references to the amount of RAM on your system. Doing a search here on the forum, I found only one relevant post that supports this.
http://discussions.virtualdr.com/Forum5/HTML/000155.html

You state that he said he gets a "weird video pattern and hangs". Is this when Windows starts? Or when MS-DOS is booting?

Others will know more.
Good Luck,
Dave http://www.geocities.com/asdf85016/smoke.gif
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[PCSolutions]

Try disabling the Video Bios Shadow if it is present in the system BIOS. You may have too look around for it & it may not be there depending on the BIOS but check for it.

[Eeyore]

I believe that on the 486 machines you had to install in pairs of same type. You must use all "Parity" or all "Non-parity" chips. Also, the speed and type may be a factor. I am told the 72 pin EDO will not work in a machine not designed for EDO memory.
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[jviers]

Thanks for all the replies!
I had told the fellow he may need to disable video shadowing, but, bless is heart he is completely new to any of this (he asked me how to back up all his files on the chips before replacing them). He is doing well though so we may try going into the BIOS.

The point at which the computer hangs seems to be when it has reached the end of the autoexec instructions and comes to win.exe, hanging at some point trying to run this. He says the video pattern is "sort of a mosaic"--never have seen such a pattern myself.

Apparently the machine will boot OK with only one chip (BIOS reports memory correctly no matter if he has one or two chips in, in whatever slot). The chips are non-parity, same as the old ones that do work. In any case, Windows will not run with one or both of the new chips (16meg & 32meg respectively) but will run when the original 8meg chips are back in place.
Again, the problem seems to be when the machine trys to start Windows.
This guy mainly wants to keep in touch with the grandkids and I'm told Win95 or 98 is much better for this, so.... Joel

[Paleo Pete]

I think Eeyore is on the right track. Sounds like it's the wrong type memory. If you can find any info on the motherboard it would help. Anyway, if the board supports Fast Page Mode and you're trying to run EDO, or vice versa, that might explain it.

You also said they are mismatched...usually both chips must match to be used as a pair.

Also check in BIOS for Video Pallette Snoop, and make sure it's disabled.

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