Help with a memory upgrade in an old Gateway p5/75?

[ajf3]

Hi all,

Trying to upgrade an old p5/75 for a school. It currently has 2 sticks of 4 in it for 8mb total. They'd like to upgrade to 32 or 64, but have no manual... Any idea of where I can get specs on what ram is needed and what configurations are supported (ie, 2 4's and 2 16's for 40?)

Gateway can't find any info b/c it's too old...

Thanks!

Gateway P5-75
12/5/95
lot 4092463
serial 4092463

 

[tboneuls]

I believe I have the same comp laying around somewhere... mine is a big huge old tower... if i remember correctly, It has 2 sticks of 16 in it. Ill check later if I can.

 

[ajf3]

Thanks - I'd appreciate it! This one is a desktop thought, so maybe the mobo's are different. I'm thinking that I'd be safe getting 60ns 16MB EDO sticks, but thought I'd ask before buying...

 

[ianbergman]

I think Kingston and other RAM manufacturers have on their website exactly what kind of memory you'll need, for just about every system ever built; it might be worth poking around to see what they say.

Out of curiosity, what are you going to use a P5-75 for?

 

[redbeard1]

Though I find it surprising, crucial says that a p-series computer in a P5-75 can support 32 meg fast page, non parity simms, up to a total of 128 meg.

So, at least from that, you know that it uses fast page memory.

You might post in the for sale/trade forums and see if someone has a couple pairs of 8's or 16's for cheap.

 

[TheCorm]

Yeah it needs to be matched to whats in there in terms of speeds, I mixed EDO and FPN once and the system became dog slow!

Jamie

 

[ajf3]

Thanks - so, is Fast Page better than EDO? When I was talking with gateway, he said he could tell it needed EDO, but couldn't find any more specifics...

Just want to make sure that these aren't contradictory... if it takes EDO, but can also accept FPM then all seems well, but if it needs FPM and can't use EDO then I'll have to figure out which one is true...

Thanks again!

btw - it's in the kindergarden class at my sons school... The kids play reader rabbit type games on it & it seems to work ok for them, but they had a fundraiser & bought a new game with the proceeds. The new game needs 32MB, but there's only 8MB in there right now, so it won't install...

 

[redbeard1]

There is no absolute answer. Usually the bios will decide how to utilize the ram. EDO is slightly faster than fast page. Going by what gateway told you, if you trust an uncertain answer, either will work. Fast page is older, but the board will adjust to it. In most cases, an older board could use edo ram, even if it wasn't made for it. The board would just use it as fast page. As previously stated though, mixing can sometimes cause trouble. In that era, some boards didn't like to mix single and double sided ram. Generally 4 and 16 meg sticks are single sided, and 8 and 32 meg sticks are double sided.