David_Anthony_Guevara@cup.portal.com (02/07/89)
I have just upgraded my Mac Plus memory to 4Mb. When I start it up, it seems to take about 5-10 seconds before it goes out to my hard disk and procedes with the boot. Is this normal? The chips are 100ns SIMMs. I would think that they would be fast enough for the Mac's 68000. When I just had 1Mb of memory, it would almost immediately go to the hard disk and start the boot-up procedure. Am I being overly concerned? Even with SIMM prices coming down, this was a major investment for me. I don't want to screw up my Mac. Any inputs would be appreciated! David Guevara
vermilye@oswego.Oswego.EDU (Jon R. Vermilye) (02/09/89)
In article <14377@cup.portal.com> David_Anthony_Guevara@cup.portal.com writes: > >I have just upgraded my Mac Plus memory to 4Mb. When I start >it up, it seems to take about 5-10 seconds before it goes out > > David Guevara Your Mac does a memory check when powered up. The more memory, the longer it takes. Jon vermilye Department of Theatre SUNY Oswego Oswego, NY 13126 315 341 2138
dodgson@cs.wmich.edu (Harry Dodgson) (02/09/89)
In article <14377@cup.portal.com>, David_Anthony_Guevara@cup.portal.com writes: > > I have just upgraded my Mac Plus memory to 4Mb. When I start > it up, it seems to take about 5-10 seconds before it goes out > to my hard disk and procedes with the boot. Is this normal? What you are probably noticing now is the memory test period. When I upgraded my SE to 2.5M, I noticed the same thing. It takes a while to check all that memory. { Several years ago (maybe even still) the Atari ST operating system would zero out all unused memory when it started an application. On the 512K machine, this was unnoticable. On the 2Meg and over machines, it was intolerable. } You can bypass the memory test on startup by holding down the mouse button at the right time. -- Harry Dodgson Jr. Internet: dodgson@cs.wmich.edu Western Michigan University Computer Science Department Voice: (616) 387-5803 Kalamazoo, MI 49008
hill@petsd.UUCP (John S. Hill) (02/09/89)
In article <14377@cup.portal.com> David_Anthony_Guevara@cup.portal.com.UUCP writes: > >I have just upgraded my Mac Plus memory to 4Mb. When I start >it up, it seems to take about 5-10 seconds before it goes out >to my hard disk and procedes with the boot. Is this normal? Yes. Don't worry about it. Upon powering up, the computer goes through a RAM test. It's taking longer now because there's four times as much memory installed. It has always been testing memory - it's just that 1mb tests faster than 4mb. The memory test is only executed upon power up (or sometimes after a particularly nasty system crash). Memory is not retested every time you select restart from the special menu or hit the restart button on the programmers switch. Incidentally, if the test encounters bad memory, you'll get a 'sad mac' with a number underneath. You can look up this number in IM (off the top of my head I don't recall which volume and what status codes are affected) and it'll tell you which is bad. I wouldn't worry too much about bad RAM, though. -- -- -- | | --- ----- --- |\ | ---- ---- ----- | | | | | |___ | |___| | \ | | __ | __ | | | | |___| ____| | | | | \| |____| |____| | ...there is no substitute (except a ZR1 'vette!) John S. Hill -- UUCP: {princeton,att,decvax}!petsd!hill
malcolm@oahu.cs.ucla.edu (Malcolm Lui) (02/09/89)
In case you already didn't know, you can hold down the mouse buttom while powering on the Mac in order to bypass the diagnostics.