ram improperly recognized...

[machs_fuel]

I picked up a x20 laptop at a work auction for 5 bucks. I've been happily running ubuntu 6.06 on it for a while and using it as my arm chair PC. It came with 192 megs ram (64 onboard + 128 sodimm) which is a little on the skinny side; once Xfce loads i've only got about 8megs of free ram ..

So.... I picked up some Kingston ram from a local retailer, P/N KVR133X64SC3/256. This would theoretically give me a total of 320 Megs... however the BIOS still reports that only 192megs are present....?

I figured it might be a BIOS type thing; so i deleved into the wild world of IBM laptop EC and BIOSes;

i've been using methods 5 and 6 from thinkwiki to try to update the BIOS..
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/BIOS_Upgr ... oppy_Image

I've updated the embedded controller to the latest version (1.36), but the BIOS update stalls at the now updating screen:shock: ... I can pull the plug and the machine comes back to life with out issue(once re-plugged). yikes, not something i wanted to have to do.

my other thought was the perhaps the update won't occur since my battery is flat.. I'm running off AC all the time, but the battery needs to be in the machine to turn on. The bios updater mentions that you should have a fully charged battery during the update instructions but lets me proceed to the now updating part none the less.

I don't really care if the bios is up to date, i'd just like that ram to be available.

does anyone have any suggestions ?

Oh, current BIOS is version 2.23 (IZET9BWW)
and EC version 1.36
and it is a PIII X20

thanks , machs[/quote]

[qviri]

The RAM you have purchased is so-called high-density RAM, with eight chips of 32 MB each. X20 and X21 only work with low-density RAM, and if you try to use high-density RAM, only half of it will be seen. In order to get 320 MB of RAM, you'd have to get a 256 MB stick with 16 chips on it. I believe this is a hardware limitation and it won't go away with a BIOS update.

Nice deal on the X20 BTW.

[machs_fuel]

hmmm thats too bad..
i guess i'm heading back to the store..

[SHoTTa35]

yeah, definitely get low density ram, i think 8x16 is low and 8x32 is the high ones. I forget, haven't used those in a while.

[pianowizard]

To ensure compatibility, look for part numbers 33L3069 and 33L3070.