Shoutbox

I just noticed, after looking at a hardware diagnostic, that my RAM is being under-clocked...

It's one stick of 256MB, 2700 DDR ram, rated at 333MHz. Unfortunately, my MoBo likes running it at 166MHz.
I have been into the BIOS and fiddled, but no change

quote:

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Originally posted by MeEtc
I have a ECS L7VMM3 motherboard with an AMD athlon 3100+ processor. The ram installed is 256 MB of DDR 2700 at 333MHz. 32MB is shared to video, and the other 224MB is used normally.
However, using Lavalays Everest diagnostic, the system only reports the ram being clocked at 166 MHz. I can confirm that it always has been quite slow, but only recently I noticed the problem. Is it possible to fix this to up the clock speed to the full 333, or at least some other faster speed?

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I posted that on Yahoo Answers, but didn't get a fix for itmaybe someone here knows?

The attached file is from Everest
Changed html to text

DDR = Double data rate. the RAM runs at twice the "actual" speed, so it is running at 333 (332)

e.g. a stick of DDR2 800mhz will report to be running at 400MHz at default, it is really running at 800MHz because that's how DDR(2) works.


edit: beat you Adeptus <3

There is no problem and no fix needed.

DDR stands for "double data rate", which means that the effective memory bus speed is doubled through some signaling trickery, understanding of which we can safely leave to engineers.

That being the case, a good fight could be had about which frequency should be referred to when discussing the bus speed of such memory -- the true frequency or the doubled frequency.  Marketers, of course, like the larger of the two numbers, so the doubled one is more commonly used.  Others, including makers of Everest, insist on reporting the actual (not doubled) number.

As you probably realize by now, 166MHz is exactly half of the 333MHz you expect, and it is the normal clock for your RAM in terms of the true frequency it runs at.

As a side note on that subject, Pentium 4 front-side bus is quad pumped, so all those shiny new "1066MHz FSB" Core 2 Duos are actually running the front-side bus at the much more realistic 266MHz.