Advice needed before I install!

Yozz76 · 20 Oct 2008 at 17:51

Lucky me has just received this memory as a belated birthday gift: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-097-OC&tool=3

I have a few questions if I may before I install this.
1. My mobo is an old P5NSLI (not the e), will this memory be compatible?
2. I'm running XP MCE, am I right in thinking this will not see all 4gig?
3. My current memory and cpu are both overclocked, do I need to set back to default settings in bios before installing these new sticks.

I don't want to damage my system in anyway because of installing these new sticks.

Help is much appreciated.

Yozz76 · 20 Oct 2008 at 19:00

Sorry for the bump but i'm itching to get this installed. Would really appreciate your advice guys.

Tetras · 20 Oct 2008 at 20:37

I'm assuming you are installing only 2 sticks (and removing the existing) with the following answers.

1. My mobo is an old P5NSLI (not the e), will this memory be compatible?

"Officially" no but it should run alright, you might need to raise the memory voltage though.

2. I'm running XP MCE, am I right in thinking this will not see all 4gig?

Correct.

3. My current memory and cpu are both overclocked, do I need to set back to default settings in bios before installing these new sticks.

Depends, you might, you might not.

apeZ · 20 Oct 2008 at 21:02

Tetras said:
Depends, you might, you might not.

To add to this, you should turn them back to default just to be safe.

Yozz76 · 20 Oct 2008 at 21:09

Thanks Tetras.

I actually went ahead and stuck it in anyway :eek:

. I did set bios back to default but my PC didn't boot at first. Managed to get back in bios and noticed a new target speed of 800mhz, I checked mobo specs which said a max of 667 so I set it to this and my PC booted fine. It seems I have had to underclock it for it to work lol.

XPmce is only seeing 3gig but I suppose 1gig more than I previously had is better than a kick in the teeth!

Something I am surprised about is the timings that CPUZ is displaying, I won't pretend I know about timings but I was expecting lower numbers (which I assume is better?). CPUZ displays the following;

Frequency: 333.3mhz
FSB : DRAM: 9:10
CAS#latency: 5.0 clocks
RAS to CAS# delay: 7 clocks
RAS# Precharge: 7 clocks
Cycle Time (Tras): 31 clocks
Bank cycle time (Trc): 20 clocks

I was hoping that this memory would help me to overclock my E6400 cpu further than the 2.4ghz i have it at now but i'm now not sure that this will be the case?

Tetras · 20 Oct 2008 at 21:23

If you can only run the memory at 333 then you can get 2.66 Ghz out of the CPU (333 x 8, assuming the CPU multi is 8).