CompuServe Thread

Douglas, If you've already got 6M in your 3000, you're not going to like the answer. In the 3000, when you want to expand the ram from a stock machine, you have to make an important decision. There are sockets in the 3000 so you can just buy ram and plug it in. You can get the ram in 2 flavors, 256 x 4 zips or 1M x 4 zips. If you go with the 256 x 4s (which apparently you did) you can only get 6M in the machine (ie, you need 8 chips per meg, and you've only got 32 sockets). Had you gone with the 1M x 4s, you get 4M per 8 chips. So, you're basically stuck by making the wrong choice at the beginning. To expand beyond what you've got now you have 2 choices, 1 "right" choice, and one "bad" choice, probably neither than you'll be happy with. The "right" choice is to pull out the 32 256 x 4 zips you have now, sell 'em, give them away, wrote them off as a bad purchase, whatever, and buy some 1M x 4 static column zips (32 of them plus your 2M chip ram will give you 18M in the box). The "bad" choice is to install an A2000 memory expansion board. The problem there is that those boards are only 16 bit so you'll be cutting the speed of your 3000 by 50% whenever that ram is accessed (there are no 32 bit memory expansion boards for the 3000 currently on the market that I know of). Now, all the above is based on my assumption that the ram you currently have in your machine is 256 x 4 zips. With a 6M configuration it _is_ possible that you've got 2M of chip ram and 4M (8 chips) of 1M x 4s. However, most people choose the less costly option of going with the 256 x 4s at the beginning and put themselves in a bind when they want to expand later. -sja

Douglas, Its been some time since I opened up my 3000, but depending on what chips you have installed at present, your options may be limited. If you installed 256k x 4 ZIPs in your machine (or if your dealer did) you have no more room for additional memory – at least, until someone comes out with a ZorroIII card. You will have to remove all of the 256k x 4 ZIPs in order to use bigger chips…If you would like, I can consult the manual/open the machine to give you a more detailed answer to your question. Jonathan

Just to reinforce (and hopefully clarify) what Steve said… If you have 2 meg of chip ram and 4 meg of fast ram (8 1M X 4 chips, as I do), then you can add another 4 meg by simply buying another 8 1M X 4 chips. These run about $30 a piece (so, around $240 f/4 meg). If this is the case, just be sure to get the same speed chips as the ones currently installed. If you have only 1 meg of chip ram, then I'm afraid you're stuck with the dilemma Steve clearly pointed out. Pages 4-14 and 4-15 of the 'Introducing the Amiga 3000' manual have a clear discussion of the memory options available on the A3000. Page 4-22 has a detailed layout of the ram sockets. Expanded with 1M X 4's, you could have a total of 16meg Fast ram (plus 2 meg Chip ram using the 256 x 4's that came with your Amiga 3000).

You need to find out what kind of Ram you already have installed… You can't mix types in the fast ram area. Whatever Block 0 is in the fast ram segment, so must be the rest of the Tam on the motherboard. You can put a 2000 style ram board in one of your slots, but with a 16 bit data path, and the extra expense for the card, you're better off looking to see what is already in there, and buying more. (One possible problem is if your 4 meg of fast ram is the dip chips rather than the zips, you might already be topped out on the motherboard, unless you want to take them out and start over with the higher capacity zips.) – Well Whap! Me Silly….

How do you get that??? I have 6 megs in my A3000: 2 Megs Chip (moved the standard Fast 1 meg 256×4 into Chip) 4 Megs Fast via 1×4 zips That totals 6 megs! JohnB 76256,3436 – via Whap!