Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!samsung!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!hamblin.byu.edu!news From: smithw@hamblin.math.byu.edu (William V. Smith) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: 4 Mb SIMMs Message-ID: Date: 22 Aug 90 17:29:14 GMT Sender: news@hamblin.byu.edu (Usenet News) Organization: Brigham Young University Lines: 44 Just thought I'd let you all in on the continuing saga of 4 meg simms and the NeXT. We just bought a load of them for our NeXTen and I drew the job of putting them in since I shot my mouth off so many times about getting some. The ones we bought are from Computer Service Technology 2546 Merrell Dallas, Tx 75229 They have the name "Century" stamped on the back. We had two bad simms in the batch and the machine we tested them in did weird things when these bad simms were installed: once the screen would not come on, and the other time we got an error message on the boot panel...can't remember what it was. The chips on these simms are Toshiba. The simms cost $250.00 each. These simms ARE somewhat taller than standard low profile 1 meg simms that come with the cube. To get them to fit, I installed 8 of them in the last two banks and removed one of the screws holding my hard drive (this does not seem to effect the stability of the mount, but if I do any extensive moving, I will put in a flat head screw instead of the round head.) Next I had to pull out the drive/power supply case and slid the motherboard and the drive case in TOGETHER since there are a couple of humps in the drive case that make it difficult to slid the board past with the taller 4 meg simms installed. A word of warning: 4 meg simms work fine but they are not officially supported yet by NeXT. Also, you MUST install four simms at a time. No fair not filling a bank. It is possible (though I doubt it) that your warranty could be effected by this installation. (Mine has run out anyway). Since the 4 meg simms are taller, they could effect the air flow in the cube. In case you aren't getting the hint, I won't assume any responsiblity for what you do with this information. I should note that the 9 bit wide simms we bought for another machine also fit in the NeXT. They appear to work just fine, but presently the NeXT does no parity check so the extra chip is not used. My guess is that this will change soon since some government applications require parity checking so NeXT may want to cater to them. Just a guess. Also, the source we bought these simms from does not appear on the updated simm source list I posted some days ago. I will add it when I get time. Any way, my machine now has 40 meg of ram and runs quite well. Looking forward to the upgrade next month. -Bill-