How to Find out Motherboard Manufacturer

[TIbrO]

I am at a friend's house and he bought 1.5GB of PC133 SDRAM for his Pentium 3 system who's motherboard model and manufacturer we do not know. The motherboard and Windows only detect 384MB of his 3 512MB DIMMs!! Is there any way for me to find out what motherboard he has, since he has no box for his stuff, so that I can update his BIOS and what not? Or better yet, do any of you have any idea how I can get his motherboard to detect all 1.5GB of his new PC133 SDRAM?

[iant]

The full BIOS number that shows up when you boot is the best key to this. Copy this down and then visit the site hardwarehell.com and check out the links under BIOS & Motherboard. There will be at least one where you can crossmatch the BIOS and usually get the manufacturer and model.
Happy Hunting.
Ian

[pacmania_2001]

It's rare for any older motherboard to support more than a gig of ram

[TIbrO]

Actually guys, thanks a lot for the useful info, but we were just too love stubborn and couldn't believe what had really happened... NeutronUSA that lists on PriceWatch all the time, they are in Pennsylvania, USA... They sent it 3 128 sticks insatead of 3 512 sticks. Today I am calling them and emailing them about this. This highly angers me, because this is the second time I order from them and they screwed up again.

[zzyzzx]

Never ever buy a motherboard (or any other peripheral) withoutfirst visiting the manufacturers website and looking at the online documentation. It should include a detailed installation guide, specifications, pictures, and users guide, often in the form of a PDF file. If these things do not exist, then just don't buy it. We consumers need to be doing this to encourage good online documentation availability.

[TIbrO]

Well, I called earlier today after my last post and spoke with some lady there. She says that the RAM they sold him is High Density RAM and that Pentium 3 chipsets do not support high density RAM. She gave me a Merchandise Return Authorization number and stuff, and then she told me to really try to find out what motherboard he has and what not. I told her I would find it as soon as possible. She said that only after they have this data will they allow for an exchange. So I guess Intel chipsets suck ass and don't support High Density RAM, eh? I thought Intel was better than that. Anyway, enough Intel bashing, and back to this. She said that the sticks are actually 512MB, and she is surprised that his PC booted up at all and detected the RAM in the first place. Well, it did, and it detected it for 1/4 of the size he paid for. Well, this is all getting sorted out, and thanks a lot for your replies, I thought I wasn't going to get many replies once I posted this, but the few replies I did get were very helpful, especially iant. Thanks!