smithw@hamblin.math.byu.edu (Dr. William V. Smith) (11/17/90)
Key words: Puttin' in them tall ones
Lines: 66
Distribution: world
Quite a number of people have asked for this again, so here it is:
To install 4 MB SIMMS in a cube, assuming they are the sort with chips mounted
horizontally (these are somewhat taller than the 1 MB SIMMS as you must know),
you must have 4 or 8, or 12 of them (it is rather more work to install 16 ).
Pull out the motherboard. If you have 16 1 MB SIMMS, you will have to remove
the ones starting with socket 15 (sockets are numbered 0 to 15).
Socket 15 is the one closest to the end of the board with the
external connections on it (ethernet T connector, etc.). If
you don't have 16 1 MB SIMMS installed, you should remove enough
to use up whatever amount of 4 MB SIMMS you have available up to 12
sockets. Once you have your SIMMS installed, the board should have
1 MB SIMMS in sockets 0-3 at least (perhaps 0-7, etc.). Now looking
at the open back of the cube, you will see two screws at the bottom
holding in the drive/power supply case. Remove these two screws and
carefully pull the drive case out of the cube. If you have never done
this before, it could be a bit stiff but should slide right out after
the initial pull. You probably have some kind of hard drive installed
so you will need to remove at least one of the mounting screws for the
hard drive (not the optical). If you install 12 of the 4 MB SIMMS, you
must remove both screws on the "board side" of the drive case and
replace them with flat head screws. You *must* remove one screw in
any case. This is the one (facing the back of the cube) on the right
side closest to the back (i.e., closest to the back cover of the cube
which you have removed to do this!)- be sure to check the other drive
mounting screws to see that they are tight. The remaining three screws
will provide sufficient support for the drive (I have a big WREN in my
cube and things work fine). Now start the drive case back in to the
cube about 1/4 of the way and then start the motherboard back in to the
cube, connecting the drive cables back to the motherboard while the
motherboard is a few inches further out than the drive case. Now
slide the motherboard 1/4 the way into the cube until it is even
with the drive case, then SLIDE THEM INTO THE CUBE TOGETHER. The
fit is snug but there is a VERY small amount of space between the
SIMMS and drive case when every thing is back together. If you are
nervous about having your hard
drive mounted with only 3 screws you can go out and buy a flat head
screw to replace the standard round head you removed. Press both the
motherboard and the drive case firmly into their connectors at the
front of the cube. Put the drive case screws back in. Reconnect
the fan cable to the fan and without screwing in the backplate
screws, hook up the monitor cable to the motherboard, plug in
the power cord and start the machine . It does seem to be
somewhat common to get bad 4 MB memory SIMMS so watch the boot
on the ROM monitor. If you get error messages about memory, or
the monitor doesn't light up, or something else is weird, it is
probable that you have one or more bad SIMMS. Sometimes at boot
the ROM monitor will tell you which sockets have bad memory, and
sometimes it won't. Bad memory can also lead to strange things
happening with apps dying unexpectedly or the windowserver dying,
etc. If nothing is wrong with the boot (you may get a message
about different size memory being installed in various blocks-this
is ok, the ROM will keep track of this and you won't get a second
message on another boot). Watch the boot process a couple of times
and if every thing is ok, turn off the machine and tighten the
screws on the backplate, hook up the rest of your stuff
(printer, ethernet, etc.) and you've got more memory.
I have 8 1 MB SIMMS and 8 4 MB SIMMS in my cube. Works
like a champ, except one of the 4 MB SIMMS went bad once a
couple of months ago and the machine would hang all time.
Watched a boot and the monitor told me I had a bad SIMM in
socket 14. Replaced it and have never had any more trouble.
My big jobs don't use much swap space now and things generally
work much faster. Also, you can reinstall the same way on
your upgrade board if you decide to go that route.
-Bill-
--
__________________Prof. William V. Smith____________________
EMail: smithw@hamblin.math.byu.edu or uunet!hamblin.math.byu.edu!smithw
SMail: Math Dept. -- 314 TMCB; BYU; Provo, UT 84602 (USA)
NeXTmail: smithw@mathnx.math.byu.edu
Phone: +1 801 378 2061 FAX: +1 801 378 2800