[aclug-L] Re: Memory Types

[Jeff Vian <jvian10@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

David Carmichael wrote:
> 
> Does anybody know of a program that will fit on a floppy/CD to tell
> and test RAM on a computer no mater what "OS" is installed? Self
> booting disc.

The old norton utilities could do this to a limited extent, but it could
not tell how many sticks of memory nor their sizes.  Only the total
memory.  And is not useful on the newer
machines.
> 
> I have been asked to upgrade a group of computers and do not want
> to open the cases (see #1 below) till I have the correct RAM in
> hand.. but due to the age of these system the RAM could be any of
> two basic packages and then the sub sets of SIMM or DIMM.
> 
> The systems are AMD-K6 systems..... which currently only have
> 32meg.

Probably PC100 DIMMS - usually pc133 will work as well
However, you did not mention if these are clone machines or brand name.
Some machines use EDO memory and often cannot mix EDO and non-EDO in the
same machine.

If they use SIMMs then all bets are off without physically checking.
These could be parity or non-parity, EDO or non-EDO, and the motherboard
also often limits the maximum memory you can use.

A couple minutes to open a machine and check the memory  may save you a
lot of hair pulling later.

> 
> The owner of these systems does not want to upgrade any other
> hardware till 2004/5 budget year, but knows that they need more
> memory now.
> 
> I do not want to take money from their current service and support
> contractor... but charging $100 per machine + $45 hour travel time
> + parts co$t seems a bit high to me...  This means that the service
> contractor could be charging as much as $600 to upgrade this group
> of systems, for labor alone.
> 
> This company got charged $65 a few months back to reinstall a font
> file that had gotten damaged.... it was the font file that was used
> to display the menus for their word processing software, and the
> person that called the service contractor out thinking their
> monitor had gone bad..... which had really happened to another
> desktop a week before.
> 
> --David
> 
> -- This is the discussion@xxxxxxxxx list.  To unsubscribe,
> visit http://www.complete.org/cgi-bin/listargate-aclug.cgi
-- This is the discussion@xxxxxxxxx list.  To unsubscribe,
visit http://www.complete.org/cgi-bin/listargate-aclug.cgi