another memory question

[cwdlmdd]

My brother in law has a older computer with 56m of memory. Is that possable? I don't ever remember seeing a 56m memory stick anywhere.

[oracleguy]

Theoretically yes. But highly unlikely.

You could have 3 16s and 1 8mb sticks.
Or you could have one 32, one 16, and one 8.

You usually don't see any of those combinations.

[cwdlmdd]

I guess that I am going to have to open it up and look at it for him. He is a 73 year old man and dosen't know what to do with it but use it for the internet. He calls me almost every week because he gets it messed up.

The other day I was over there and he was telling me that he had a viruse on the computer but than said that it wasn't bothering anything that he was doing so he wasn't going to worry about it. But I fixed it for him anyway.

I guess I will have to examine his computer a little closer to see what is going on with it. I thank that it is over 5 years old though.
And he tells me know that he would like to try and play some games on it.

[oracleguy]

5 years, then it is probably using PC66 DIMM or even SIMMs.

If it is SIMMs, then the odd ball memory size would be a little more reasonable. Becuase you can have 8 sticks and they were made from 256k to 32MB.

He could of been reading something that said how much available RAM was, not total.

[cwdlmdd]

The 56m is something that I seen my self. And I thought that windows 98 needed at lease 64m to run. I thank that I need to look over the machine my self to see what is going on. The memory size just did not make much since to me.

[oracleguy]

64 is the "recommended" ammount of RAM for 98 but it will run on less.

Are you wanting to add more RAM into it?

[sage45]

Another thing to consider is whether he has onboard video or not... If he does, then he may be sharing some of the memory with the video card...

-sage-

[oracleguy]

Originally posted by sage45
Another thing to consider is whether he has onboard video or not... If he does, then he may be sharing some of the memory with the video card...

-sage-

Duh, I should have thought of that! :)

Yeah it would then be taking 8 megs up. :)

[cwdlmdd]

I wondered about that also but my own computer has built in sound and video card and it still tells me that I have 64m of ram.

And Yes we were thanking about adding more ram.

[sage45]

The BIOS controls the reporting of the memory... Some BIOS' will show the true amount of memory on the system while others will report only what the OS is allowed to use...

-sage-

[oracleguy]

And it depends on where you look at the total ammount of RAM. Like during POST where it checks the RAM, it will show the total ammount, but like Sage said it depends on the BIOS after that.

If you need to know what type of RAM to get, if you can give us like the make and model of the computer then we can probably tell you. Or take a picture of the inside of the case and we might be able to do it.

If you can get us the make and model or even the motherboard's model number then we can tell you how much total RAM it supports too.

[cwdlmdd]

Ok Thanks! I will have to get into his computer a little more to see just what it is. As Far as I know there is no brand name on it. But I don't know the motherboard type.