Serious problem with my Dual Channel RAMs

[DABhand]

Sure were still friends, its called a debate nothing bad about that.

But, I do have my own PC shop and it doesnt matter what programs etc tell you, when using your memory to the max the speed will drop to 166. Trust me on that, ive been using debuggers etc and ive seen the memory speed drop.

64 bit boards are better at handling data transfer, so can use 200mhz speed, but on 32bit boards most (not all) will drop speed to 166. No matter what POST says.

[henry]

Thank God for Intel, my 2 X 512mb PC3200 dual channel is running at 201MHz and that's confirmed in Sisoftware Sandra.

Mainboard Gigabyte 8IK1100(standing in for my 8KNXP), CPU FSB 200MHz(P4 3200MHz).

[kosmiq]

and my nForce 2 has the RAM running in 200MHz, trust me it does...

[DABhand]

A good example to explain it better would be this...


You see a skinny guy giving people hassle on the street, you walk up thinking "Skinny guy not a problem ill just knock him out"

You go over to punch him, he turns round picks up a car and squashes you with it..

You go "Damnnnn Deceptively strong"


Moral: Appearances can be deceptive :P

[kosmiq]

Originally Posted by DABhand

A good example to explain it better would be this...


You see a skinny guy giving people hassle on the street, you walk up thinking "Skinny guy not a problem ill just knock him out"

You go over to punch him, he turns round picks up a car and squashes you with it..

You go "Damnnnn Deceptively strong"


Moral: Appearances can be deceptive :P

Hrmm.... Yes something like that... Buuuuut not in this case...

[DABhand]

Well Kosmiq i will have to put down the fact ive been an Engineer for a long number of years, and know how things work.

It doesnt matter what Sisoft Sandra or any of these other programs say, they arent telling you in detail how the speed of the memory is fluctuating within a given time frame. All that they usually report is the speed located on the memory chips rom's.

There is good debugging software out there that can report the current speed of memory. Perhaps looking for those, and you will get a suprise

[kosmiq]

Well Sisoft Sandra and the like reports the speed the memory are currently running at.

Like this:
Setting the memory to run at 166MHz Sandra will show (to your surprise) 333MHz DDR. OMG how did that happen? No idea.
Setting the memory to run at 180MHz will result in? OMG 360MHz DDR as reported by Sandra, POST and even nVidia System Utility (that can be used for windows overclocking btw)
Setting the memory to run at 200MHZ will give the correct result... Guess what? 400MHz DDR how can that be? No idea must be magic somehow... All apps reports the same.
Setting the memory to run att 225MHz will give 450MHz output no matter what the checking utility is...

So there is either magic going or all apps will show wrong.
Please give me the name of a good debugger that will show me the info you say me to look at and I will gladly test it and give screenshots.

Sorry for being a little negative there, no pun intented just felt like writing like that...

[DABhand]

As I said Sisoft Sandra will not report CURRENT frequency..

And dont use that tone, or ill reply back in that tone.

[kosmiq]

I said "sorry for being a little negative here"...

And please no pun intended I don't mean to be offensive or anything only that I can't reply in a good manner after a period of time...

Anyway, please name the deubugger and I will check it out.

[DABhand]

Just search the net for realtime memory debuggers, there are a few.

Some motherboards come with a clocking utility that shows the current speed of the ram. Try that also.

[kosmiq]

Well actually nVidia System Utility is a realtime overclocking utility made for nForce 2 chipsets among others.
I took the liberty of supplying a few screenshots here simply to give proof.

http://upl.silentwhisper.net/uplfold...inxp2gbram.JPG
http://upl.silentwhisper.net/uplfold...systemutil.JPG

As you can see I am currently using 2gb RAM on my nForce 2 motherboard as shown by windows, POST and so on.
About speed, as you can see on the second picture (nVidia System Utility) the RAM frequency is currently 399MHz DDR @ CAS 2 with the other timings as you can see on the picture.

nVidia System Utility is a program developed by nVidia and is free for download. It supports real-time monitoring of voltages, speed and temperatures. It also supports real-time changing of voltage, FSB, Timings and more.

[DABhand]

Aha thats not the frequency im talking about..

So we are both right in our debate..

I was talking about bus speed from Memory to CPU

[kosmiq]

Haha are you serious? We have been talking about different things the whole time? HAHA!!!!!

Then it is not strange that we had such disagreement...
Feels good to have that solved...

I had no idea the bus between CPU and mem was lowered when using 2gb of RAM on the other hand.

Now that this has been solved we can all be friends and nice again...
A little thought, lets say the communication between CPU and mem is 200MHz standard, gets lowered to 166MHz when using 2gb RAM then it should be easily solved by upping the speed to 201MHz.
On nForce 2 this speed is not changeable as far as I know but on the nForce 4 is should the HT-bus right?

[Luciel]

Ok heres an example of an nforce user

My amd ASUS AK7NX8E-Deluxe motherboard (nForce 2) 2 Ram sticks of 512mb DDR400 each (Dual Channel). So in total 1024mb ram, when the pc starts, it says 1024mb memory running at 166mhz, ok correct me if im wrong, but i payed extra so it was ddr400 double channel so it did what it was meant to do, not for it to run at 166mhz, anything i can do about it?

[DABhand]

I know its a risk, but have you updated the motherboard firmware?

Perhaps its a brand the motherboard doesnt like or know.