Couple of basic (I hope) questions

[xboxist]

The other night ago I put together my first new rig in almost 6 (!) years. I'm happy to say that building it was very educational and satisfying, and it posted properly on the first startup. It was my first time dealing with all of these new architectures like SATA, dual-channel RAM, PCI-e, etc.

Anyways, I'm left with a couple of questions:

1) How do I make sure that my RAM is operating at the advertised speed? I purchased a 2GB kit (1GB x 2, DDR2-667). When I used CPU-z, you can bring up stats for each of the two sticks. Each one read as -- "PC5300" and "333MHz"

Does dual-channel work in such a way that each stick "works together" to create the full rated speed (667)? Or are my modules truly running at half speed?



2) How do I make sure that my SATA hard drives are also operating at full speed? The BIOS has some setting that I'm not sure how to set up properly. Things like "Use SATA IDE mode?" and "Use SATA legacy mode?"



3) I can't seem to get my MIC to work through my sound card. So I was going to try the onboard MIC port out. Can anyone tell me what I need to activate/hook up to get this to work? Is it even possible to use both a sound card for sounds, and an onboard MIC port at the same time?

 

[Tarrant64]

1) That is correct. DDR2-667 operates at an I/O of 333Mhz, so you're good to go there.

What motherboard are you using and is it Dual-Channel capable? To sum up dual-channel doubles the amount of memory bandwidth increasing performance a bit depending on your system setup. There are major differences in how this works AMD vs. Intel wise. (ex: AMD 754 and I think some 939 processors never supported dual-channel, although this is because AMD used the method of an on-die memory controller, which worked just fine).

2) Usually just leave BIOS settings to default if you aren't sure what it is going to do. You can use HDTach or common utilities found online that will benchmark your hard drive performance. PCMARK can also get some numbers for you.

3) You know, funny you should mention this as I currently have a problem using my onboard sound as well as my creative sound card. A while ago it was working but as of late I screwed up the installation when I had to do a reinstall of XP. A lot of the times what is the problem is advanced settings under sound. Sometimes MIC boost needs to be enabled, or it is it is muted somewhere in the settings. What kind of MIC are you using? And does it actually show up under the sound configurations?

 

[xboxist]

Thanks, Tarrant.

1) Yeah, my board is Dual-Channel capable. It's a Gigabyte P965-DS3. It's good to know my RAM is functioning properly!

2) Thanks, I'll search for a utility to check it out.

3) I'll mess around more with the MIC port on my Creative sound card tonight. I just remember going through about 17 pages of sound options and not being able to get it to record anything. I know the MIC itself works as it worked on my previous computer. It's a decent little $25 logitech mic. That's why I was asking about onboard MIC port. I didn't hook up any of the tiny little onboard sound connectors on my MB because I was counting on my sound card to work properly. Can I just go back in and hook up just the little MIC jumper? I wasn't sure if the computer would get confused with both a sound card and an onboard mic fighting for control, or something.

 

[xboxist]

I just want to clarify on my RAM situation. This is what I see when I use CPU-Z:

Type: DDR2
Size: 2048 MBytes
Channels #: Dual

Timings...
Frequency: 333.3 MHz
FSB/DRAM: 4:5

Slot #1
Module Size: 1024 MBytes
Max Bandwidth: PC2-5300
Manufacturer: Corsair
Part number: VS1GB667D2

Slot #2
Module Size: 1024 MBytes
Max Bandwidth: PC2-5300
Manufacturer: Corsair
Part number: VS1GB667D2


**********

Everything look ok there? I'm just paranoid. It says PC2-5300, but it never actually mentions DDR2-667.

 

[Tarrant64]

As far as the ram goes still looks OK to me. Didn't know the part numbers would show up the same though. Maybe they always do...

Umm...The MIC issue I'm not sure how to explain. I've been on my Mac while on this forum so I haven't been able to sit down at my desktop yet and go through the steps I usually take when troubleshooting my MIC. I usually have to change some things around when using it on a new install or new PC for that matter. And most likely we are using the same MIC, at least...mine is a headset. It is a logitech however and was around $25(walmart).