Problem: RAM Operating Slower?

[Sunny69]

Hi, this is my first post on this forum and I'd just like to say... I'm not a noob and I dounderstand how to build PCs and fix them but I have never came across this problem before... lol just thought I'd clear that up. :laugh: :)

So, I just recently bought this decent motherboard called ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA
Link: http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=4CoreDual-VSTA

And I also bought this Dual Channel DDR2-667MHz 2GB RAM from Kingston which should operate fully at 667mhz... right? So as soon as I get home, I take off my DDR3200 512MB & 256MB RAM and stick these dual channel babies in. Boots up fine, and I run EVEREST Ultimate Edition to get some knowledge of the RAM I just got. So, the problem is that I don't think this dual channel RAM is running as fast as it can. In EVEREST, it says that my Memory Speed is: DDR2-667(333MHz) << what the heck? 333Mhz...? It says on the box that it operates at 667MHz.. hmm. So I checked the BIOS, and something even weirder shows up.. I see exactly this setup:

Dual-Channel Memory Mode

DDRII1: 1024MB/266MHz (DDRII533) << hmm, why is it running on 533 and not 667?
DDRII2: 1024MB/266MHz (DDRII533)

... I really have no idea but I would really appreciate if someone could help me.. do you think my motherboard is not letting the RAM run at the highest speed? I think it should though, thanks in advance for any help. :)

Other PC Specs:
----------------

Intel D915 CPU (2.8GHz Dual Core, 4MB Cache)
2GB DDR2 RAM
Windows XP Professional SP2 (on 1 hard drive)
Windows XP Professional SP2 x64 Edition (on the other HD)
480-Watt Dual Fan Power Supply
NVIDIA GeForce FX5500 256MB PCI GFX Card

[Polaris573]

It's DDR memory so you have to multiply it by 2 to get the "rated" speed.

DDR333 (166Mhz)
DDR400 (200Mhz)
DDR533 (266Mhz)
DDR667 (333Mhz)

Your motherboard officially supports DDR533 if I'm correct (I havn't looked). So to get the full DDR667 speed you have to overclock your memory to that speed. For example, my motherboard supports DDR400 but I have DDR500 in it. To get to DDR500 I have to overclock my memory. At standard settings it runs at DDR400.

[Sunny69]

hmm can u suggest and easy way to overclock my memory? I'd look forward to doing that to get better performance... thx

[kwchang007]

hmm can u suggest and easy way to overclock my memory? I'd look forward to doing that to get better performance... thx

i bet bios is the easiest way, but idk all our comps are oem's....but i know my friend's bios lets him oc the memory seperatly.

[Sunny69]

I honestly don't think my BIOS has it..lol not that I know of like I could check but if it doesn't, how else could I overclock it?

[kwchang007]

I honestly don't think my BIOS has it..lol not that I know of like I could check but if it doesn't, how else could I overclock it?

umm without overclocking the cpu, i can't think of a way. i haven't really messed with systool, but i don't think that can overclock the memory, just change timings. you could try overclocking the cpu from inside of windows, since the fsb and the memory should move in the same steps. so you'd need to push the fsb up by 67 mhz, then you's also be overclocking your cpu by 938 mhz! whoa i didn't know pentium d had those huge multipliers, but ok. umm besides that way i know of no way, i mean you could try and go for the overclock but you'd need some serious cooling to cool a pentium d at 3.738 ghz. i suggest going back into the bios and see if it has the option.

[Sunny69]

I guess I'll try going into BIOS... anything in particular I'm looking for besides: memory multipliers? lol

[Sunny69]

I ran CPU-Z and it gave me this info:

Frequency: 267.9MHz
FSB:DRAM 3:4

shouldn't the ratio be 1:1 ?

EDIT* ahh ha, I think I got it... I went into bios and changed the DRAM Config from "AUTO" to DDRII-667 (333MHz)

[kwchang007]

I ran CPU-Z and it gave me this info:

Frequency: 267.9MHz
FSB:DRAM 3:4

shouldn't the ratio be 1:1 ?

EDIT* ahh ha, I think I got it... I went into bios and changed the DRAM Config from "AUTO" to DDRII-667 (333MHz)

ok nice. and the ratio doesn't have to be 1:1 for the system to work right. you have it 1:1 for overclocking because your cpu still gets the information it needs every clock of the fsb, then by lowering the memory speed, you can get more of a cpu overclock because it would have more headroom ex. your pentium d, 1:1 would be ddr2 400mhz (sounds slow huh?) in dual channel. (i think dual channel basically counts as double the bandwidth on top of the dual pumping of the fsb speed) so you'd have 267 mhz of rated fsb (and 133 mhz of "true speed"). well that's how i think it's work, im not sure because im not an overclocker. now idk if having a better than 1:1 ratio is good, if the hdd has to copy info to the ram does it have to go through the fsb? if so then laptops with ddr2 memory is stupid, they should've stuck with ddr, much better latencies. sorry for the long post, but this is the first time i explained this (oh and if im wrong, please correct me)

[Sunny69]

Honestly, good post.. and I don't know if your wrong but thanks for posting lol... I'm not much of an overclocker myself, just would like to try it and see what happens :D

[kwchang007]

Honestly, good post.. and I don't know if your wrong but thanks for posting lol... I'm not much of an overclocker myself, just would like to try it and see what happens :D

lol thank you, most people that i know think only the amount matters....how little do they know? lol