What Does The SPD Setting Do On A Motherboard

Ambro · 18 Apr 2007 at 01:25

I saw this in a review as on of the options for setting the memory on a motherboard, does anyone know what it does?

SiriusB · 18 Apr 2007 at 02:18

SPD stands for Serial Presence Detect and it is basically the motherboards ability to read a small chip on a stick of RAM that contains all the timing information. For everyday use leaving the motherboard to do this by itself is fine.

However, when overclocking [or sometimes when not] some boards change or even completely ignore the timings. It is generally recommended to set the 4 main timings yourself in the BIOS [ie 4-4-4-12 for my RAM].

Jokester · 18 Apr 2007 at 07:56

Yep, it basically tells the MB what RAM timings to use and are nearly always on the conservative side and not as tight as the rated timings the RAM is actually sold at. It's nearly always better to manually set them to the correct timings.

Jokester

Ambro · 18 Apr 2007 at 17:46

Thanks very much for the information.

keogh · 18 Apr 2007 at 18:04

Yeah deffo set them yourself, cos some SPD timings on some sticks are wrong (like my GeIL SPD timings for 400mhz). You can usally check the "optimal" timings for your RAM on the manufacturers website, so manually set them to that.

ronok · 18 Apr 2007 at 19:19

When setting this yourself how do you know if your motherboard is using jedec or EPP standards?

My board is autodetecting wrong if it's using EPP and right (possibly) if it's using jedec.......

I say possibly as the corsair website indicates it should be using 2.1 v but my mb says it's 1.86 v......

http://www.corsairmemory.com/corsair/products/specs/TWIN2X2048-6400C4D.pdf