Memory - 440BX and 440GX

[beatle]

I'm planning on picking up a SuperMicro P6DGE motherboard and a couple P3-500s. I know that my BH6 was picky about memory when I tried to put some of the newer PC133 in it (say a year and a half ago). Does the 440GX chipset have this same issue? I'd like to use some of my old SDRAM in it, but I'm unsure if it will work in the dual board.

 

[Peter]

The speed grade isn't the point.

440BX cannot do more than 128 MBytes per DIMM _side_, and it has to be in eight chips per side as well. The latter is still true for 440GX, but it manages twice the size. 256 MBytes per side (in 8 chips), 512 MByte maximum standard DIMM size.
Registered DIMMs may be twice as large on both chipsets (because these have up to 36 chips on them, not just 16 like normal ones).

 

[jswjimmy]

i had a se440bx2 that could use 256mb sticks

 

[beatle]

Hmm... I had a 128 meg stick of PC133 that wouldn't run in my BH6. It ran fine in my KT7a-raid, however.

So, if I read you right...
I should sell off my non-registered 512 (16x32) meg dimm since it will be useless on that motherboard, but this 256 (16x16) meg non-registered dimm should work, correct?

 

[Peter]

In a 440BX chipset, non-registered 512-MB won't work. Double-sided 256-MByte DIMMs should, as long as they use 128-Mbit "16x8" chip technology - if the board's BIOS knows that too 440GX might cope with the big one too, provided it's also double sided, using 256-Mbit "32x8" SDRAM chips.