Confusing memory info

[Carl Turner]

 

I ran SysInfo on a new (to me) STe.

According to badge it's a 1040STe.

And according to SysInfo

"Type : 1040 STE"

but memory is :

"Bank 0 $0424: 512 kb"

"Bank 0 $FF8001: 512 kb"

"Total ST-RAM : 512 kb"

"Free ST-RAM : 277 kb"

 

I've opened her up and found all 4 banks full of memory.

Took all of them out and put two back in, in the front 2 banks (nr Keyboard)

Nothing, not even desktop or floppy running.

I tried putting a 1mb stick into bank 4 (if two nr KB are 1 & 2), this time I get green screen and hear floppy start spinning but that's it.

Not sure whether this is due to fact that it's only got TOS 1.62 in it.

 

Cheers.

PS Could try putting all 4 banks with 1mb sticks into it? As I know they work as they came out of my other STe, which has TOS 2.6?

[+DarkLord]

Not sure if I'm remembering right, but I think you have to put 2 SIMMs in banks like 1 and 3, and 2 and 4....

 

Try that and see what happens.

 

HTHS.

[anzac]

I also have the same idea that banks had to be populated 1-3 and 2-4...

[31336haxx0r]

Yes, you can put 1 MB SIMMs into the STE. It has 4 MB total RAM then. TOS 1.62 doesn't have anything to do with the RAM your STE has, so don't worry about that.

[Zogging Hell]

Might be worth trying something like Profile to check the ST as well, it may be a bug in Sysinfo, but more likely some of your simms have come loose or have malfunctioned. Darklord is right, the simms do need to be used in matched pairs (preferably) in alternating banks. So try swapping out the memory two sticks at a time to find the culprit. Remember the STe only sees memory in combinations of 512k, 1024k (1mb), 2mb and 4mb (you can get 2.5mb with the right auto program, but don't confuse this ). So if one of the simms has died or come loose then you probably will find its fellow simm won't be recognised either. So if you have a simm in bank 1 and bank 3 (other banks clear) and the result is a non/ mal - functioning ST then you know one of the simms is blame so try swapping one of them out. It also might be that the simm contacts have become encased in dust or gunk and the contact has gone bad. Might be worth a clean with some isopropyl alcohol before you chuck the simms away.

[31336haxx0r]

Or test them in an old PC mainboard w/ memtest.

 

Dang, now I remember why I wanted to keep that 386 I threw away just the other day.

[lgr]

I am having this same issue with a 1040 STF with TOS 1.04. SYSINFO shows that it has 1024 Kb of RAM, but only 277 are free. I am not running any desktop accessories or have an auto folder. I am testing from floppy. Any ideas? It looks like only 512Kb are useable.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

It should look like this with 1 MB and TOS 1.04, clean boot :

 

 

Can you provide some screenshot or more details ? 

Btw. free RAM info by Sysinfo is little misleading - it is free RAM while program is running. Real free RAM in case of clean boot , 1 MB total RAM is about is 900 KB. With 512 KB RAM is about 400 KB .

Edited September 12, 2019 by ParanoidLittleMan
mistype