Can my motherboard support HDDs over 400 GB

[Nikolay]

Can my motherboard support HDDs over 400 GB? My motherboard model is EM61SM/EM61PM.

Does anyone with my motherboard have any HDD limitations?

 

[Qdos]

I just made a comment on your other thread LOL...

 

[ignatzatsonic]

That board is supposedly a Foxconn MCP61SM-AM; rebranded by Acer. I am currently trying to dig up more info.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

ESL: o.sql - Player - Pack4Dreamhack - Europe - ESL - The eSports League

Above is a link to a guy claiming to have your board and "1 terabyte" of storage, but we don't know if that is all on one drive and if it is reliable info.

 

[Nikolay]

I found this page

Destructoid - The-Excel's Community Blog

He has one drive with 500 GB space, although I don't know if it's an internal or external HDD. At least it narrows down the search a bit?

Nevermind, it's an external.

 

[bobkn]

Can my motherboard support HDDs over 400 GB? My motherboard model is EM61SM/EM61PM.

Does anyone with my motherboard have any HDD limitations?

If you have a 160GB hard drive at the moment, and can use all of it, that means that your motherboard supports LBA48 addressing (> 137GB).

I believe that means that any current HD should work, including the largest (2TB).

 

[Nikolay]

It only shows 139 GB to actually be usable.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Foxconn Support - Download

Above is a link to the Foxconn board manual. I looked through it and saw no overt references to HD supported size. The board uses an NVidia chipset.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Nikolay:

What is the model number of your Acer PC?? Is it an AST 180?

Questions about buying a new computer fan - SlickDeals.net Forums

Above link has this info:

By nucleus on 05-31-2009, 03:03 PM
I have an Acer AST180.
I got it in 2007 from the Circut City deal for $170...when taking the monitor back.
Ive put XP on it.
Ive put another 1tb harddrive in it and altogther 4 gigs of ram. it works great, but could use a new fan on the back of case.

 

[Tews]

Google really is your friend.... learn it, love it, use it...

 

[Nikolay]

It is an Acer Aspire T180.

Which I guess is abbreviated to AST 180.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Well, the guy I quoted (Nucleus) says he has a 1 TB drive working on his AST 180.

But you say you have only 139 usable on your PC?

You could have an older BIOS than Nucleus which may cause you problems. He bought his in 2007. Do you know when you purchased your PC?

You can probably get the BIOS version easily and may be able to Google more info with it, in conjunction with AST 180.

 

[Nikolay]

I forgot that I had a 10 GB partition so I guess that would be 149 GB usable.

I bought mine in July 2007. A few months ago I believe I flashed my BIOS to the latest version.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Your existing hard drive is apparently a 160 GB.

It's a tough call. I'd lean toward telling you that you could go to 1 TB since you say you flashed the BIOS and "Nucleus" has had success.

Personally, I wouldn't take the chance just yet and would try to get more confirmation.

Can you beg or borrow a larger drive for a day or two--from a friend, etc. Just to see if your PC will acknowledge its entire capacity?

If you know where you got that new BIOS, go back there and drill into the documentation for that and earlier BIOSes. You may find a reference to HD support.

 

[Nikolay]

Acer doesn't have any kind of documentation for my BIOS (R01-C0 12/09/2008)

I found this post from CPU upgrading ACER T180 computer - CNET Computer help Forums

I also have the same computer. I have an ACER T180 and it was given to me because the previous owner had multiple issues. Well, I install a new HDD and Windows XP SP3 and it works great. T180 had AMD 64 3500+ single core and I upgraded the bios and installed a AMD 64 x2 6400+ in its place. First thing you need to do is upgrade the bios to the R1-C0 version before upgrading the CPU. Here's the link to the bios: Acer Support - Drivers & Download You might also want to consider upgrading the power supply as well considering that the 3500+ is a 45 Watt CPU and the higher end AMD CPU's are 89-125 Watts. The stock PSU is only 250 watts. I installed a Raidmax RX-530SS power supply, 750 GB HDD, 2 Gig DDR2 PC6400 RAM, and a Sapphire HD 3870 512MB 256 bit graphics card and I am able to play anygame out there. I also modded the Front I/O connector so I can install other mobo's beside the T180 model and I did a LED Mod on the Power button, Power LED, and HDD Led on top making them all blue leds instead of red and green.

Right now I know that I can use at least a 750 GB HDD with my current BIOS.

Also, I'll be buying the HDD in February so there's no rush.