Underclocking/volting RAM

thegoonden

thegoonden

thegoonden

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21 May 2007
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In the M2N box in my sig, I have 4X1GB Geil DDR2 800MHz, running cas 4.
It's the only thing in the box that produces any heat. It's not hot by any stretch of the imagination, just warm.
I was wondering if I could maybe set it (using a BIOS preset) to DDR2 667MHz, drop the CAS back to maybe 5 5 5 15, and drop the volage from 2.2 to 2.0 or 1.9, and if so, would this create frosty RAM?

The machine trundles along 24/7 as a general desktop, no gaming, that's why I have the XP/Vista box, the only time it's under any pressure us when running system updates (because gentoo is a from-source distro, it downloads and compiles all your proggies for you....good job, I quit coding at "10 Print "bum" 20 goto 10"), so I can't imagine I'd notice the underclock (the CPU is already 400MHz under stock and positively blissed out).

Thoughts?

Pillock?
 
Have you tried 2.1v (that's what the CAS4 Geil is usually specced for at 800mhz)?

But a warm heatsink usually only means that the heatsink is doing its job. I really wouldn't worry about it.
 
I know, it's as close to silent as you'll get, the fans on the antec900 are set to low and then turned down to far with an akasa fan controller that they don't spin up from cold ;)

But I was just thinking frostyness all round would be good.

Funny, seen a few quotes of 2.1 for this RAM, but mine definitely says 2.2v on the sticker on the spreader.

Basically, I built the box last year not realising that AM2 was a dead tech, and there was no upgrade path, so I built a new winbox and converted the AM2 machine into the new Linux workhorse. 2X2.4GHz and 4GB of RAM is far more horsepower than is actually needed, it's embarrassingly quick, so I figure the plan should be to give it an easy life so it lasts for 5 years, at which time it MIGHT just need replacing.

I'll maybe satisfy myself by booting back to it's windows partition and letting prime95 run a mem torture on it, while I do the old "james herriot" and feel the RAM while it's actually getting dog's abuse.
(not sure what to stress RAM with in Linux really)
 
If you feel happy trying it then I would give it a go to be honest.

I found out that my Ballistix 667 can pass long prime sessions at 400MHz (800) using 4/4/4/12 timings with only 1.8volts.

They run nice and cool and are ideal for my HTPC, I appreciate that your ram is completly different but as with any form of under/overclocking you won't know unless you try :)
 
I think I'm just looking for something to break until my new MOBO arrives.

Will defo see how hot it really is under torture, if it's still only warm I wont bother, but if it gets hot, I'll see about slowing it down.

Cheers :D
 
Not so much about keeping it cool as minimizing the heat it produces in the first place. I just want this box to be a nice cool, stress free "retirement home" for components ;)
 
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