How to increase RAM up to 1 GB in an old Dell Optiplex GX150-Desktop after BIOS & Chipset-Upgrad

[Waylon]

In the former tek-tips - thread "thread602-1522459" - written in 2009 - there was postet a solution to increase the dell-official maximum rate of 512 MB up to 1 GB, but the link to the discription of this solution doesn't work now in 2014.
I'm looking a lot of hours where I can find this discription, but all for nothing.

The last post of the 2009-thread:
Peopleunit (TechnicalUser) 5 Jun 09 14:11

I think I got it figured out. To increase the system's memory addressing capacity you need to install the latest chipset drivers. As already mentioned, probably a good idea to flash the BIOS with the latest upgrade for that as well.
Here's a link to the driver download which includes the description. In the description you will see where it mentions support for 1 GB of memory.

http://www.findmysoft.com/drivers/Dell-Optiplex-GX150-Chipset-driver.html

The driver update is from Dell, but they don't include a description of the update on the Dell website. Yet if you choose, you download it from there as well.

http://support.dell.com/support/dow...d=1&releaseid=R89211&formatcnt=3&vercnt=6

Look at the section "chipset"
With either download source, the filename for the updated chipset drivers is R47822.EXE
As you can see, on that page there's a whole slew of other driver updates that you should probably install for the computer - Optiplex GX150.
As you may or may not know, you'll need to be running Windows to get the updates to install from your hard drive.
The firmware updates include the means for installation from a floppy, the drivers which are Windows specific might not have that option.

Thank you all for any helpful ideas or this old discription for Upgrade the GX150-Memory !
Waylon

 

[goombawaho]

That machine is just too old to spend any money on. Besides that, I don't know that I would trust that old thread without some other confirmation that you can actually use more than 512MB of RAM in it. Crucial says 512MB is the max. I trust them because they want to sell you memory!!

It looks like the BIOS mentioned IS a Dell bios and I would never use an alternate BIOS.
Isn't it time to move on? I've recycled better computers than that.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[rclarke250]

Especially when there are a ton of dual core machines with windows 7 out there for under $200.00. It just doesn't make any sense to put any time or money into a machine in the pentium 3 era.

 

[goombawaho]

Unless there is some "gun to your head" reason that this machine must not go out of service, in which case you did NOT enlighten us.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[Waylon]

Thank you for your answers and advices, but I put in this time my money aside to buy a car for using in my job.
The other reason is my hobby:
I love it to restore technical things which are meanwhile in common use dated. So, you can say I'm a "do-it-yourselfer".
Ciao,
Waylon

 

[goombawaho]

Well, even a do-it-yourselfer can't do it if it's not do-able. I wouldn't risk spending the money on the RAM and then not be able to have the machine recognize it. If you can't find someone on the internet that says that they did it and HOW they did it, I wouldn't attempt it because, from the specs I found, it is NOT do-able.

Now, you decide if you want to gamble with that money.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[strongm]

>it is NOT do-able.

Without being able to remember the exact model number it was related to, I recall once investigating the possibility of working around a similar RAM limit on a Dell Optiplex of some description (at a time when such an upgrade might have made some sense). There were claims on the Internet that it could be done, through a hacked version of the official Dell BIOS, and multiple claims by people that they had done it. But none could actually provide the BIOS that achieved this.

Inevitably, and perhaps not surprisingly, it very quickly became clear the RAM limitation was a hardware limitation that no BIOS upgrade in the world was going to change, and that all the claims that people had got it working were no more than hot air.

I rather suspect this is the case here.

In fact ... the GX150 uses the Intel 815E chipset. And whilst the 815E supports 512Mb in a single slot (and that has to be a double sided DIMM, with each side carrying 256Mb) as per page 54 of

http://download.intel.com/design/chipsets/datashts/29068801.pdf,

that 512MB represents the physical maximum (no matter what you put in the second slot), as per page 56 of the same datasheet. It is a physical (not driver) limitation.

 

[spamjim]

I love it to restore technical things which are meanwhile in common use dated.

Do you also like to make a turkey & mayo sandwich after the ingredients have been at room temperature for a week?

For the cost of RAM and the cost of time to figure out how to add it, you can purchase a newer computer.

Setting aside the idea that you can maintain this old hardware, there is no decent way to maintain the software. Modern (secure) operating systems require modern hardware. If you keep this thing alive, it will be an open target for malware and online hacking.