memory upgrade: use 1 bank, or both?

Greetings,

I'm refurbishing old systems for charity and I have a question regarding memory upgrades. If I have a motherboard that maxes out at 512 MB of RAM and has two banks, is it possible to use one 512 MB chip and leave the other bank empty rather than one 256 MB chip in each bank? Is this recommended?

Thanks,

David
http://computingproject.notesettersinc.com/

Hi David, Looks like you are doing good work. All motherboards have a maximum amount of RAM they can accommodate, and also they max amount that can be put in each mem slot. The are two common ways of finding out these maximums: 1 Look in the owners manual for the machine or mobo concerned….you will probably need to download it as "donated" machines rarely seem have the paperwork enclosed. 2 Visit this site with the machine concerned. www.crucial.com you can get the crucial scanner to examine the particular machine, and its database is often not only able to tell you the exact make and type of compatible RAM but also the max figures in total and per mem slot… very useful info. You don't have to buy the memory from Crucial …although I do, and have yet to be disappointed! To use the scanner you will need to accept an Active X control (its safe from that site) so it's best to do this before you format and install an OS other than Windows. If you have linux for example then you can type in manually the make and model number of the computer and Crucial should come up with the required info. Regards paws