athlon 2600+ barton and pc2100 memory

[udonoogen]

i was dinking around in my bios and i noticed that it had some kind of message ... something like you have to make sure your memory is blah blah blah 333mhz. i did some reading on this forum and it seems it was referring to the front side bus. since pc2100 memory is rated at 266mhz, should i underclock my processor while i get new ram? even though this is a tech forum im not too savvy with the bios and how all these ratings go. i appreciate your help!

athlon xp 2600+ (i assume its a barton because i dont think fry's packages mobile athlons in their packages)
i have 3 sticks of pc2100 ram. 512 stick of crucial, 512 stick of kingston value, and 256 of crucial.

here's a link to my rig for more specs. thanks for your help!

 

[tracerbullet]

I don't think you hurt anything leaving it, the PC just runs the chip at one speed and the RAM at another. I'd suggest new RAM that's 2700 (or better for future use) but you aren't hurting anything right now.

It sounds ike you've run it this way for a while? Pretty much shows that it can handle a few more days that way at least until you get more.

 

[BlueWeasel]

So what clock speed are you running at? As tracer mentioned, you're probably running the CPU and RAM asynchronously...ie, CPU at 166 Mhz FSB and RAM at 133 Mhz. The XP chips suffer a big performance hit if the CPU and RAM aren't running at 1:1.

You've got some decent PC2100 chips, so you might try raising the RAM voltage to 2.7v or 2.8v and see if they can hit 166 Mhz. Otherwise, you'll need PC2700 or PC3200 to run both the RAM and CPU at the same speed. I'd go ahead and pickup PC3200 because both PC2700 and PC3200 are about the same price.

 

[udonoogen]

argh if i had known i'd have to upgrade my ram i wouldn't have upgraded my processor. do you guys think ram prices will drop anytime soon? i like to buy new in order to make the warranty good. ram's always been so expensive.

 

[TorinoGT24]

As already mentioned....the ram being run at a different speed than your fsb is going to make performance drop. But, it won't hurt anything if you don't have money for new ram. Check the for sale/trade section, there are very good deals to be had on some pc2700.

-Collin-

 

[watek]

those crucial PC2100 are pretty good!!

 

[BlueWeasel]

I'd try overclocking the RAM first before you go out and buy 1280mb of PC2700/PC3200. You've got some decent chips there, and they've probably got some room for overclocking.

I've got a stick of 512mb PC2700 Mushkin Basic Green, and it runs fine at 215 FSB (49 Mhz over stock) with 2.75v volts.

 

[udonoogen]

overclocking the ram voids the warranty, ya? if i screwed up i'd be out of a gig of ram. that would majorly suck. for used ram what kind of pricing should i look for in a 512 stick of namebrand pc2700/pc3200?

Don

 

[BlueWeasel]

Originally posted by: udonoogen
overclocking the ram voids the warranty, ya? if i screwed up i'd be out of a gig of ram. that would majorly suck. for used ram what kind of pricing should i look for in a 512 stick of namebrand pc2700/pc3200?

Don

Whatever :roll:

 

[udonoogen]

Originally posted by: BlueWeasel

Originally posted by: udonoogen
overclocking the ram voids the warranty, ya? if i screwed up i'd be out of a gig of ram. that would majorly suck. for used ram what kind of pricing should i look for in a 512 stick of namebrand pc2700/pc3200?

Don

Whatever :roll:

thanks for your help i do appreciate it, dont get me wrong. i dont know how to overclock ram though and it makes me uneasy thinking about the risks. is it easily done and how hard is it to burn out the chips?

 

[BlueWeasel]

Originally posted by: udonoogen

Originally posted by: BlueWeasel

Originally posted by: udonoogen
overclocking the ram voids the warranty, ya? if i screwed up i'd be out of a gig of ram. that would majorly suck. for used ram what kind of pricing should i look for in a 512 stick of namebrand pc2700/pc3200?

Don

Whatever :roll:

thanks for your help i do appreciate it, dont get me wrong. i dont know how to overclock ram though and it makes me uneasy thinking about the risks. is it easily done and how hard is it to burn out the chips?

Well, I understand your concerns, but as long as you're careful, the chances of destorying your PC2100 are low.

Basically, you'll need a board that has RAM voltage adjustment (typically VDIMM voltage in the BIOS). I'm not sure if the Asus A7N8X-X boards have that, though.

You'll just need to raise the FSB from 133 Mhz upwards in small amounts (5-10 each time). Basically, raise the VDIMM up to about 2.7v-2.8v and see if you can hit 166 Mhz stable with the PC2100. I've heard of RAM being pushed to 3.0v or more with no problems, and I've been running several sticks of PC3200/PC700 RAM at 2.75v for about 2 years now.

There is not guarantee that your RAM will go much higher than 133 Mhz, but I'd definately check it out before I went out and bought new sticks.

[Edit]
According to this review the A7N8X-X has DDR voltage adjustments in the BIOS up to 2.8v, so you should be good to go.

 

[udonoogen]

shweet. thanks. how do i know if it is stable every time i up the voltage? do i run that benchmark test or whatnot? my system is kinda out of whack because of some disagreement between the VIA chipset and the radeon video card drivers already so it may be difficult to gauge the ram's stability by the system crashing ('cause that happens off and on already due to the dumb mobo/video card deal). thanks for doing the research youre awesome.