Trying Out Old PC Memory in My Yamaha A3000

00:00 Memory doesn't work at all 00:12 Trying pairs of SIMMs at a time 00:40 First incompatible pair 01:05 Second incompatible pair (even worse) 02:12 Oh, did you by chance read the manual? 02:34 Some compatible SIMMs 03:30 Some more compatible SIMMs audio warning sound starts around 0:20 Rough cut missing audio correction and (perhaps) background audio/voiceover. I started this video a long time ago and wanted to do a voiceover for it, but it's just been sitting around and the titles kind of tell the whole story, so here it is. The Yamaha A3000 sampler uses 72-pin DIMM memory modules, which have been abundant in dumpsters, thrift shops, old shoeboxes, and other low-cost sources for some time now. In cleaning up my basement I came across several DIMMs that looked suitable to max out the RAM in this A3k I bought on craigslist. I figured I'd try some of the memory out before recycling it. I learned that there are some DIMMs that don't work in the A3k. I believe this might have something to do with the timing waveforms like CAS/RAS latency. If the A3k was a PC from the 90s, you'd just change the BIOS settings; but it wasn't designed that way. Around this time Yamaha was just beginning to grudgingly admit that most people don't want to pay 500% markups for memory that has a Yamaha logo on it. So they gave us the concession of standard DIMM sockets, but didn't go out of their way to fully implement PC memory standards. That's my theory anyway.