why wont memory run at the speed i tell it

buachille · 14 Jan 2006 at 09:46

i just got this memory

Corsair 2GB DDR XMS3500LL Pro TwinX (2x1GB) CAS2 (MY-093-CS)

i do not have the machine overclocked at the moment. i just want to get the speed running at 3500 (216mhz). i went into the bios and changed the memory frequency from 200 mhz to 216 mhz and it has stayed there, but when i boot back into windows and run cpuz it tells me that my memory is running at 200 mhz and is 3200.

what am i doing wrong.

please help

SwedishChef · 14 Jan 2006 at 10:39

Are you sure you aren't getting those values from the SPD tab? My apologies if you already know this but that tab shows the manufacturers rated/recommended values for those RAM modules - which is read off the actual modules themselves and never changes, not what you've set in your BIOS.

buachille · 14 Jan 2006 at 10:47

no. check this out.

cannot understand this. i've set the ram to run at 216mhz in the "power bios" area of my EPoX EP-9NPA+ Ultra. the ram should be running at that speed now.

i also installed sisoft sandra and that also reports that my ram is running at 200mhz

buachille · 14 Jan 2006 at 10:51

and check this. this is the spd tab. it is saying that the max bandwidth of these sticks is 3200. well these are meant to be max 3500????????

buachille · 14 Jan 2006 at 11:03

and just to confirm that i haven't set something wrong in the bios, here is the screen where i've done the business.

SwedishChef · 14 Jan 2006 at 11:20

I'm not sure I believe you - post another screenie.

Sounds very weird to me - I can't explain it. I can only think that it's being misreported by CPU-Z but if Sandra says it as well.... OK so Sandra isn't always reliable but that's two progs saying the same thing. Try A64 tweaker and see what that says.

buachille · 14 Jan 2006 at 11:30

yeah i did go a bit OTT with the screenshots.

right i'm off to try this a64 tweaker

cheers

buachille · 14 Jan 2006 at 11:36

i've never used this app before and not too sure about it but it seems to be reporting the same thing.

mercyless · 14 Jan 2006 at 12:43

you have to raise hht/fsb before you can set mem frequency.

buachille · 14 Jan 2006 at 13:12

i did not know that. is this ram locked to 200 mhz unless i overclock the machine. it is meant to run at 216. i thought i could leave the rest of the machine at stock settings and just tell the ram to run at 216.

i tried something else a while back. i set the ram back to 200 mhz, and overclocked the htt/fsb to 216mhz, with the chipset divider dropped down to 4x and the cpu multi dropped down from 12 to 11.

this did make the ram run at 216mhz with the cpu just under 1.4ghz, but when i tried to fire up cpuz i got a message saying there were errors, and it would not display any info about the ram at all.

mercyless · 14 Jan 2006 at 13:58

you have to run over 216+ hht/fsb to set mem to 216.
i would set ram at 200 = 1.1 and up the cpu to 216, keeping 5x, failing that 4x
leave the multiplier at 12

buachille · 14 Jan 2006 at 16:36

mercyless said:
you have to run over 216+ hht/fsb to set mem to 216.
i would set ram at 200 = 1.1 and up the cpu to 216, keeping 5x, failing that 4x
leave the multiplier at 12

gave it a bash. wouldn't even boot. blue screened before the windows logo appeared.

then i dropped the cpu down to 210, upped the ram voltage to 2.8v, and raised cpu voltage by 0.05v, and dropped the board speed multi (whatever its called) to 4x, and i got the windows logo showing and then it blue screened again.

mercyless · 14 Jan 2006 at 18:28

try cas @ 2.5 first,= 2.5-3-2-6

Mrchu_ · 14 Jan 2006 at 18:32

...so, your'e close.

Next steps would be to put a tiny black marker dot on one ram,then swap them round in the slots writing which settings go stable,
You may have to do a bios update or two also using the settings written down,IE stick 1 in slot 1....etc etc
Then you may feel your'e more on the money.
Its a bit exhaustive,but if your organised it can be worth it.
I had some ocz 3500 and it was real picky.
Hope this is a good idea

Dunky · 14 Jan 2006 at 19:00

If you have SATA drives, make sure the bus for them is locked (or you are using locked ports - usually 3 and 4) before raising the HTT, otherwise you'll have drive corruption (which can cause the BSOD).

I guessing when you've said that your trying to set 216 (DDR433) in BIOS, you are trying to use one of the 'upward' dividers which were added to Venice and SD processors. Since it didn't work, I'm guessing you've got a Winchester or earlier proc? In which case you will need to raise the HTT to run memory at DDR433.

P.S In the CPU-Z pic, it says Max Bandwidth is PC3200 since that's what the SPD timings say. CPU-Z takes it's reading straight from SPD so even though your memory is tested to PC3500, it still says PC3200 because that's the only reading available.