Alienware Aurora Memory Upgrade

P3N9U1N

P3N9U1N

P3N9U1N

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i know i screwed up and bought an Alienware and i'm sorry :( . But now im thinking of upgrading my 9GB 1300 RAM to 1600 RAM but im not sure whether my system or motherboard will support it. Does anyone know whether my system will support Corsair Dominator GT 1800?

I have an Alienware Aurora R1 model with the 6 RAM slots, i7 920. CPU-Z shows motherboard made by Alienware and model 04VWF2. Any help will be greatly appreciated
 
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most likely not because all 1600 ram if i remember correctly is actually set at 1333 and have to manually change the speed to 1600. Alienware dell etc etc oem's don't allow you to change speeds/timings/volts on anything so even if you buy 1600 ram that will work it will still only be 1333.
 
I had an Aurora ALX and recently sold it, it allowed user control of the BIOS settings and I fitted 1600 RAM and altered the voltage to 1.65v in order to get it working...you can also change the multiplier speed but I'm not clued up on stuff like that. Basically they are not completely locked like Dell, some stuff is unable to be altered but I overclocked mine from 2.66ghz to 3.6ghz with no problems at all.
 
so far ive overclocked from 2.66 to 3.5 but need faster RAM to go on further. I know voltage and multipliers can be altered in the new Alienware BIOS
 
Another option is to drop the memory multiplier. You won't see any difference from dropping speeds. But if you do wish to go to 1600mhz, how much RAM do you usually use? I can't see why someone would need 9gb unless they're doing a lot of HD video editing. 6gb is more then enough for gaming, and would be cheaper if you went with a 6gb kit instead of a 12gb kit (I can't see any 9gb kits...).
 
as well as playing games i do the occasional video editing. But i use a lot of CAD programs which use a lot of RAM. so far I overclcok my CPU to 4Ghz and my RAM goes up to 1600Mhz and i get blue screened. bringing the multiplier down to x6 brings the memory down to 1200Mhz andi get blue screened :(
 
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have u tried running memtest ?

if ur getting blue screen when ur at 1200 then its not the memory thats the problem.

the fact that u put the speed down of the memory and still getting blue screen would suggest something else.

9gb is a very odd amount, how many sticks of ram is it, and what sizes are they?

also, 4ghz is very difficult to get to when u have all your ram slots filled, u'll have to put up the voltage considerably

first thing u need to do is run memtest to check if the ram is actually working at the speed you've set, then u'll need to adjust the voltages to get the system stable
 
3 x 2GB and 3 x 1GB sticks. i gathered it was the memory giving me the blue screen memory dump that wouldnt allow me to overclock, but maybe i'm wrong?
 
well u say it works when its at 1333, but when u up the CPU and set the memory to 1200 it doesn't, would indicate that the system is not stable, as the memory wouldn't suddenly become unstable when running it at a lower speed.

u should try to increase them one at a time to determine what part is not working

u could change the memory multipler to increase the memory speed without adjusting the FSB, using memtest to test for stability,that'll determine how fast you can run your memory at or what voltage u need.

but as ur running all 6 slots, ur overclock is going to be limited without putting a lot of voltage through the cpu

my guess would be that its the cpu thats whats making it unstable
 
When i set the BLK on the CPU to 200, it sets the memory to 1600 on a x8 multiplier, and i get memory dump, then setting the multiplier to x6 brings it to 1200 and again, memory dump. Setting the BLK to 175, which it is now sets the memory to 1400 and is completely stable. I think replacing the memory with 3 sticks of 1600 may solve the problem and allow me a better overclock, but i'm no expert.
 
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P3N9U1N said:
When i set the BLK on the CPU to 200, it sets the memory to 1600 on a x8 multiplier, and i get memory dump, then setting the multiplier to x6 brings it to 1200 and again, memory dump. Setting the BLK to 175, which it is now sets the memory to 1400 and is completely stable. I think replacing the memory with 3 sticks of 1600 may solve the problem and allow me a better overclock, but i'm no expert.
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I echo the thoughts of other users here and would recommend you run memtest to 100% confirm that your memory is at the limit as it could save you some money. There is the off chance that your chip may be at it's limit.
 
P3N9U1N said:
When i set the BLK on the CPU to 200, it sets the memory to 1600 on a x8 multiplier, and i get memory dump, then setting the multiplier to x6 brings it to 1200 and again, memory dump. Setting the BLK to 175, which it is now sets the memory to 1400 and is completely stable. I think replacing the memory with 3 sticks of 1600 may solve the problem and allow me a better overclock, but i'm no expert.
Click to expand...

i doubt it'll help
because ur getting the problem when runnign the ram at low speed (1200) with a higher bclk

which means that its ur higher bclk thats causing the problems, not the ram
so adding faster ram would mean that u'll still be getting the problems

when u put up the bclk did u adjust the voltage at all ?
coz theres no way u'll be able to run a bclk of 200 at standard volts with 6 ram lots filled, u could get the fastest, most experience memory u can buy, and u still wouldn't be able to

also 175 to 200 is abig jump, u should step it up in smaller increments.

simply increasing the bclk means that the cpu, chipset and ram are all getting overclocked, so any one of them could be whats unstable.

ideally, u need to test the overclocks one at a time so you know how far each part can go

as u've not mentioned any voltage change, im assuming thats where ur going wrong
 
i did put up the voltage up earlier after you mentioned it may have to be increased, then i tried my successful 3.8 overclock, which im currently running. Before which i hadnt put up the voltage considerably so im guessing that was the problem, current 3.8 seems stable at the moment with the memory voltage up to 1.70v which is the highest it has been, and wont be going any higher without a new set of memory, which will be 3 slots instead of 6
 
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cheers mate, i hope the 3 slots will give me a better overclock after all this trouble
 
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it should do, with only half the banks full, it'll lift some of the strain off the memory controller which is on the cpu

allowing for more stability when overclocking
 
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