Top Document: SGI hardware Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Previous Document: -14- Can I mix 1MB and 2MB SIMMS in my 4D/20 & 4D/25 Personal IRISes? Next Document: -16- How many 4MB SIMMS can be put into an Indigo? See reader questions & answers on this topic! - Help others by sharing your knowledge The short answer is "maybe". Read on. Thanks to Michael Portuesi <portuesi@tweezers.esd.sgi.com> for this helpful summary: The 4D/2* has 16 memory slots. You get access to them by removeing the right plastic cover and the metal shield underneath (box seen from the front). The slots are in the upper, left corner (box now seen from the right). The slots have to be populated by SIMMs (some kind of industry standard). I think 80 or even 100ns is allright, but take a look at the speed of your own SIMMs. SIMMs should always be mounted in groups of four. In a plain 8MB 4D/20 you have eight 1MB SIMMs. They are placed in slots A and B in this figure: ABCD ABCD ABCD ABCD If you upgrade to 16MB using eight more 1MB SIMMs you simply insert the new SIMMs in slots C and D. If you are going to mix different SIMMs you should always have the the same type of SIMM in slots with the same letter. As far as I know, the SGI 32MB memory upgrade is sixteen 2MB SIMMs, and they are mounted in all the slots. Now, I have been told (but haven't tried it) that it is possible to mix 1 and 2MB SIMMs. The important point is that the 2MB SIMMs should be in the lowest numbered slots. To get 24MB you should populate the slots as shown (signatures are, 1 = 1MB SIMM, 2 = 2MB SIMM, 4 = 4MB SIMM, . = empty slot): 2211 2211 2211 2211 The good news is that you can get 4MB SIMMs from third-party vendors outpricing the 2MB SIMMs available from SGI. To get 32MB you mount 8 4MB SIMMs like this: 44.. 44.. 44.. 44.. The bad news is that you cannot mix 4MB SIMMs with 1 or 2MB SIMMs (leaving a lot of spare SIMMs) and even worse, not all 4MB SIMMs will function properly. Among the "good" SIMMs are those from Toshiba. They should look something like this (information I got from a news article posted by Chris Miller <eagle!news@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>): module ID tags: chip numbers: -------------- --------- TOSHIBA | TOSHIBA | | 9025AAA | TC514100J-80 | THM94000S-80 | | JAPAN | JAPAN 9020HDK -------------- --------- Among the "bad" SIMMs are those from Hitachi: chip numbers: JAPAN R200 9026 2NN HM514100JP8H Other memory configurations that we have tried are (0 = empty slot, 1 = 1MB SIMM, 2 = 2MB SIMM, H = 4MB Hitachi SIMM, T = 4MB Toshiba SIMM): 1100 1100 Came up as 8MB (correct) 1100 1100 1111 1111 Came up as 16MB (correct) 1111 1111 TT11 TT11 Came up as 64MB (wrong) TT11 TT11 T000 T000 Came up as 16MB (correct) T000 T000 TT00 TT00 Came up as 32MB (correct) TT00 TT00 HH00 HH00 Came up as 0MB (wrong!!) HH00 HH00 TH00 TH00 Came up as 32MB (correct) TH00 TH00 TTH0 TTH0 Came up as 48MB (correct) TTH0 TTH0 TTHH TTHH Came up as 64MB (correct) TTHH TTHH 11TT 11TT Comes up as 16MB 11TT 11TT It appears as though the machine checks the first bank of chips (port 0) to determine the chip size and assumes that the rest are the same. The Hitachi 4MB SIMMs are NOT correctly detected. It is important that the 4MB SIMMs in slot A are 'good'. Then you are free to use "bad" 4MB SIMMs in the rest of the slots (this is my experience), and it is possible to upgrade to 64 MB populating all the slots with 4MB SIMMs. When you do the actual seating of the SIMMs you should take precautions (wear a static strap, work on a static pad) not to damage the memory. Sometimes you will have to reseat a module. If a SIMM is not properly seated it will probably show up on the diagnostics terminal (if you have one attached) during power on. After a successful power on you should enter the PROM monitor and issue the 'hinv' command. This should tell you how much memory you have (or how much the 4D/2* believes it has). If this is correct you are ready to boot. Dave Olson <olson@sgi.com> adds: [The "good" vs. "bad" SIMM business] is a PROM bug. We had a fix, but that PROM never released. We didn't have 4 MB SIMMs when the last shipped prom released. We read a memory location with the 4M SIMMs before we initialzed it. SIMMs that power up all 1's work; those that power up all 0's require a reset or two (by then the memory was initialized). The Toshiba simms worked once; I've heard that current 4M Toshiba simms may not. The moral of the story: many people do fine with 4M SIMMs in their 4D25s, but don't buy them without a money-back guarantee. User Contributions:Top Document: SGI hardware Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Previous Document: -14- Can I mix 1MB and 2MB SIMMS in my 4D/20 & 4D/25 Personal IRISes? Next Document: -16- How many 4MB SIMMS can be put into an Indigo? Single Page [ Usenet FAQs | Web FAQs | Documents | RFC Index ] Send corrections/additions to the FAQ Maintainer: sgi-faq@viz.tamu.edu (The SGI FAQ group)
Last Update March 27 2014 @ 02:12 PM
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