Just brought 1 gig of memory for my es, installed securely and my motif wont recognize it. got matched pair of 512 MB memory modules off of ebay . I read a few places that the es could handle this much memory, was I mistaken?

I just downloaded a manual of the ES (I have a XS) and in that manual they say that the total maximum is 512 MB (2 x 256 MB). So your 1 GB is too much. A pity. OR: perhaps it is possible, but the other technical specifications of you DIMMs doesn’t match the ES. You can check your manual, or google a manual.

It has been known for years that the manual is wrong in this case:

THE ES IS CAPABLE OF 1024Mb OF DIMM MEMORY!

Try to test the memory in some other apparatus.

;JOOP!

Hi ;JOOP!,

Sorry to hijack this thread, but you seem to know a lot about memory. Do you know what other specifications are required for the Motif XS series keyboards? I tried to use two 7-year old 256MB DIMMs from my dormant desktop computer, but I guess there was something else wrong with the memory. When I played back any samples I loaded I got static.

I saw that this brand works well, so I may pick up a set http://www.motifator.com/index.php/archive/viewthread/331426/P15/

But I’m just curious what other specs, like buffered/unbuffered, CL rating, or whatever else is necessary to not screw up the keyboard.

Thanks!
-Tony

I am NOT a memory expert at all, I just spend some decades with computers.

Don’t be difficult, take the specifications in the manual with
you and go to a good shop. Show the specifications and buy the right memory.

Some details: memory in pairs implies interleaved memory:
that is, the even numbered locations sit in the first DIMM,
the odd numbered locations sit in the second DIMM;
it was an old trick to make the memory a bit faster.
ECC memory has extra bits per location, so that failing bits
can be detected and corrected by the computer.
Nowadays such failure is rare and even sometimes ‘repaired’
inside the chip. Then again it’s expensive and many equipment
become confused about the extra bits.
The ES and the XS both have 30 address lines to the DIMMs, so
they can ‘see’ 2**30 locations (8-bit bytes) = 1073741824 bytes
= 1Gb (giga).

Last: if you buy a synth for $2000-$4000, why spend so much
time in sparing a few $$ on the memory?

;JOOP!

sciuriware - 13 April 2009 03:41 AM

...take the specifications in the manual with you and go to a good shop. Show the specifications and buy the right memory.

Thanks ;JOOP!, but that’s why I was asking about the full specs. Apart from PC100 or PC133, maximum 18 chips, and “same manufacturer”, the specs fail to mention anything about voltage, CL5/CL3, ECC vs. non-ECC, parity vs. non-parity, and buffered vs. unbuffered.

sciuriware - 13 April 2009 03:41 AM

...interleaved memory… it was an old trick to make the memory a bit faster.

Ah… much like HDD RAID 0 striping, which alternates between drives to increase read/write times. I thought that might be the case.

sciuriware - 13 April 2009 03:41 AM

ECC memory has extra bits per location, so that failing bits can be detected and corrected by the computer. Nowadays such failure is rare and even sometimes ‘repaired’ inside the chip. Then again it’s expensive and many equipment become confused about the extra bits.

That could be the problem with my old desktop RAM. I think I bought ECC because my motherboard supported it.

sciuriware - 13 April 2009 03:41 AM

The ES and the XS both have 30 address lines to the DIMMs, so they can ‘see’ 2**30 locations (8-bit bytes) = 1073741824 bytes = 1Gb (giga).

Ah, I wondered about the reasons for memory limitations. Thanks for this. The XS is still an impressive beast without built in sample RAM.

sciuriware - 13 April 2009 03:41 AM

Last: if you buy a synth for $2000-$4000, why spend so much time in sparing a few $$ on the memory?

I guess I do sound like that. ;-) I’m not against spending the money, I’m a big fan of detailed specifications.

As others have reported success with the Newegg Wintec RAM, I ordered a pair.

Thanks again!

Since some time we know that the XS can take more than 1Gb memory.
Despite heavy discussions on the subject (none of us has the
blueprints of the Motif(s)) it appears that some people are
happy with 2Gb, while some others reject it purely on the fact that
load times become unacceptable or risks are not known.
Even without it some people experience weird problems.

Whatever I may have posted on the subject, it was what I had
learned from (in my eyes) dependable sources or facts I learned
during my career.

I believe that Yamaha offers an acceptable balance between
old fashioned, but reliable and state-of-the-art but hazard prone.
In my career I have seen many techniques come and go and I still
pity the companies that wanted the fastest and most sophisticated
and finally lost their data.
(Anybody remembers the bubble-memory hype?)

I’m just a “living-room-amateur” but I wouldn’t risk loss of my
“precious” creations.
Faithfully,
;JOOP!

Yes, I agree.  The more stuff you have to load to the memory the longer it takes the Music Workstation to be inoperable every time you do so simply because it is still copying the samples.

It is just unacceptable to have to wait a very long time to load all those samples.  Even at 512MB, I find loading that much to be too long to wait for.  2GB is way too much and would take way too long to load.

Who likes to wait that long anyways?