Odd computer memory behavior.

[The_Dark]

The ram frying comes from the fact that it happens. See, the speed ratings on your ram are not an exact. it's what they will safely operate at. Most likely they can operate at higher speeds. So, your system may infact crank them up to speeds faster than they are rated to safely run at.. and then the frying part comes in....

From what your saying.. Your cpu's internal FSB is at 800 (200x4 or quad-pumped) and your ram is running at 333Mhz (166x2). Which means your going to have slight bottle necks and not get the full speed you paid for. You prolly wont notice though. As for the reason it reports 320mhz... thats within the margin of error for reporting it. At the OS level, reading speeds off the hardware is hardly accurate.

[Msterbeau]

The ram frying comes from the fact that it happens. See, the speed ratings on your ram are not an exact. it's what they will safely operate at. Most likely they can operate at higher speeds. So, your system may infact crank them up to speeds faster than they are rated to safely run at.. and then the frying part comes in....

From what your saying.. Your cpu's internal FSB is at 800 (200x4 or quad-pumped) and your ram is running at 333Mhz (166x2). Which means your going to have slight bottle necks and not get the full speed you paid for. You prolly wont notice though. As for the reason it reports 320mhz... thats within the margin of error for reporting it. At the OS level, reading speeds off the hardware is hardly accurate.

I think I mentioned earlier.. The Intels docs say that 333Mhz RAM will be clocked down to 320Mhz with an 800Mhz bus. Something to do with latency issues, etc. It's what I expected to see.

And yeah.. I know.. I'm not getting the full speed of the RAM. I do get the full capacity though, and compared to before I get an increase in speed because the slower RAM (and thus the bottlenexk) was the PC2100 266Mhz sticks.

Lifes a bunch of tradeoffs. This is one I can live with for now.

Now to take all the parts I have laying around from the HP and rebuild it into something for my daughters. All I need is a half decent hardrive to make it work.

[The_Dark]

yeah, but your p4 2ghz most likely only had a 400mhz fsb.

Yeah.. i can see that running at 320... it would just have to use a 2.5 multiply rather than a 2.

[Kiss The Midget]

this is the first time i read this but as i was reading i was waiting for someone to use the right term. its not bottlenecking or whatever. and you yourself mark found it ;the term is clocking down to the lower speed.

I think I mentioned earlier..  The Intels docs say that 333Mhz RAM will be clocked down to 320Mhz with an 800Mhz bus.  Something to do with latency issues, etc.  It's what I  expected to see. 

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[The_Dark]

Actually, everytime I used the term Bottlenecking.. thats exactly the term I meant to use. Bottlenecking happens all the time on your pc... most people are unaware of it... thats why damn near everything has a buffer or cache... not everything runs at the same speed. A good example is having a super highend graphics card without having a highend CPU to match. Lets say a 6800 Ultra AGP card... if you put that video card in a pc with say.. a Pentium 4 3ghz chip... your cripplling the Video card. The cpu isn;t fast enough to keep up with the card... there is a measurable loss in video performance. Now... put that same video card in with a 3.8ghz cpu and your going to see the full power of the card. The same holds true with Ram and the CPU. If you use slower ram than your cpu calls for.. you will get a bottleneck as the CPU waits for the ram to catch up. Will you notice it? Depends on how bad the bottle neck is. Another example is over clocking... Ever wonder why you never really see any of the hardware mags and hardware testing sights over clock a P4 past 4ghz? Sometimes they do.. but not by far... Bottlenecking. I can clock a P4 Mobile 3.06ghz cpu to about 5ghz. It will run stable if I water cool it. The thing is.. it's no faster than it was at 4ghz. Why? Bottlenecking... nothing else can move the data that fast.

[pharoh]

I'm with Dark on this one, but I am also a networking person, and when something has the potential to run at higherspeeds, and another device is keeping it from running at what it should, thats a bottleneck.

[Msterbeau]

I'm with Dark on this one, but I am also a networking person, and when something has the potential to run at higherspeeds, and another device is keeping it from running at what it should, thats a bottleneck.

I had great one-liner until you edited your post. Damn you! :laughing

[pharoh]

Ya I thought about that and decided leaving me open like that would be a bad thing lol

[Msterbeau]

Ya I thought about that and decided leaving me open like that would be a bad thing lol

Yah... Us unscrupulous goths will take advantage of such opportunities yah know...

[pharoh]

Yah...  Us unscrupulous goths will take advantage of such opportunities yah know...   

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We can spot our own I think lol