help with a ramcard...

[aquasonic]

I have a unknown 16-bit isa ramcard. It uses 2 banks of 18 OKI M41256-10 chips which 1mb of ram.

It looks pretty much as this one http://www.resoo.org/docs/_hardware/th99/i/U-Z/50495.htm however mine has a jumper set the lower left corner.

How do i make it work? My 386 system has only 2.5mb ram and it cannot install WFW3.11 because i added a cdrom drive and using mscdex :(

any help whould be greatful :)

[Anonymous Coward]

If your 386 motherboard has SIMM slots it probably doesn't make much sense to use this RAMcard on your machine. It will work, but it will be really slow. Cards like this are made for 286 machines where the CPU is running near the frequency of the ISA bus. I bet your board has 30pin SIMM slots. I see people throwing 1mb SIMMs away all the time. I'm sure somebody in these forums would be more than happy to give some to you for the cost of shipping. If you can, go with SIMM and save yourself the stress.

[aquasonic]

Unfortunately My mobo doesn't simm slots :( I would have hooked up 4megs by now ;)

It is a Intel mobo inside an Intel ergodata system (intel 7000). I've searched for mobos model and nothing came up in google or tc99 :(

Right now it has a huge ramcard of 2megs in a strange slot, like 2 8-bit isas one behind the other. So my only hope to increase memory is this ramcard...

(the system is dated 1987 :p)

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you have a really old 386. That's pretty neat. I don't think I've ever seen a 386 without SIMM slots before. However, it sounds like the 2MB ramcard already in there is using a proprietary interface to give you 32-bit memory access. This would be vastly superior than using a 16-bit memory board like the one you are planning to install.
Take a closer look at the 2mb board that is already installed in the strange slot. It should have 256kbit chips seated in the sockets. Those chips are 16-pin. Though, often times boards like these are capable of taking both 16-pin and 20-pin chips. This is important, because the 20-pin chips come in higher densities. If that is the case you could have 8MB of RAM on the card instead of only 2MB if you are willing to buy new chips.
If you are not sure, take a picture for us.

[aquasonic]

the chips cannot be removed from the card that its already inside the system (2mb). the card is made also by intel :)

it's not only pretty old system, but also unknown! the intel logo isn't the one i knew from 486s etc but it is written just like this :Intel :p

also i don't know anything about the jumper settings :(

the card already installed : http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/279/009gk1.th.jpg (http://img221.imageshack.us/my.php?image=009gk1.jpg) the mobo : http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/4308/010hp7.th.jpg (http://img179.imageshack.us/my.php?image=010hp7.jpg)

[carlsson]

Wow, an Intel CPU from the days when they didn't consider it meaningful to print their logotype on a computer part that very few people will see? :)

[Anonymous Coward]

I really love your 386. It's quite a dinosaur...definetly a keeper. Not only does it not have any SIMM slots, the motherboard is all TTL. Okay, so it looks like nothing can be done about your proprietary intel RAM card. It seems like your motherboard has two of these proprietary slots so that you can add another 2MB board. Though, I bet finding another one would be pretty much impossible.
So, it looks like your original intentions were correct. Going with an ISA memory expansion board is really your only option, though it will be somewhat slow. However, if you can't get documentation or software for your ISA card you may need to get a replacement. Most of these cards need to be set by both jumper settings and software.
I highly recommend the Everex EV-159 (RAM 3000), and Bocaram AT boards. I am particularly fond of the Boca boards because they let you use 30 pin SIMMs for memory. I'll look around and see what I can find.

[aquasonic]

Dinosaur :D i wanted a name for it thanks :D :p

Finding another thing like this is pretty hard :( so i'll have to use a thingy like that u said :P

I can't find nothing about the card. I'll post a pic of it tommorow, an a whole one of the system with case on/out if anyone has any info about the pc :D

Thank u very much for ur info :D

[Anonymous Coward]

Try this website:

http://www.computertradeexchange.com/

I was able to find quite a number of expansion boards in their inventory. Though, for old stuff it's a little expensive. I found a few cards in the $25-$35 range. You might want to send an e-mail to them and see what they recommend.