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Is my IT guy wrong?

J

Jhill

Diamond Member
At work the IT guy had a bunch of pc133 ram sticks. He said that he couldn't use them because our pcs are pc100. I told them that I thought they would work in pc 100 machines (motherboards), they will just run at pc 100. He said no, if i put them in there the pcs wont boot up.

Is he wrong or am I wrong?

 
Using the PC133 DIMMs should work, that is unless the motherboards are very picky in the RAM used, but even then the problem wouldn't be due to them being PC133.

Bet him lunch or something and try using a PC133 DIMM and see what happens, at most your out a sandwich.
 
Its amazing how some people get hired for IT jobs.

The only problem you would have is mixing ECC and non ECC memory. But that has nothing to do with the speed of the ram. I've never heard of a 133 not being able to run at 100.
 
I'm a financial analyst and I know crap-loads more than the IT guys here at work. In fact, a friend of mine's a damned good COBAL and C+ programmer, but he couldn't tell you the difference between an AGP and an ISA slot. He couldn't tell you the difference between the video card and the sound card unless he followed the cables to the back of the computer.

I've used PC133 in three different boards that also use PC100 sticks and not one of them has complained; they just run at PC100.
 
In some cases he would be correct, some boards/chipsets are picky about RAM & won't work properly with some newer RAM.

Viper GTS
 
My old motherboard uses PC100 ram, but I have both PC100 and PC133 on it and it works fine.
If there's a problem with the mobo being picky with ram, then there might be a problem, but otherwise the PC133 should work fine, it will just default lower (to the PC100), just like you can use PC2700 ram now on a mobo that only has support for PC1600/PC2100.
 
Originally posted by: Dug
Its amazing how some people get hired for IT jobs.

The only problem you would have is mixing ECC and non ECC memory. But that has nothing to do with the speed of the ram. I've never heard of a 133 not being able to run at 100.
Click to expand...
Even that isn't a problem, unless its a mainboard which requires ECC memory. When mixing the two types (or using ECC memory in a non-ECC supporting mainboard) the memory will simply operate in non-ECC mode.
 
Occasionally you have to push it to the fastest memory timings. Normally, there's a good 95% chance it'll work out of the box. All you have to do to know if it works is see it POST.
 
The problem that might crop up has nothing to do with memory speed. Some old motherboards may have a problem with high density packages. It might not be able to resolve addresses with two bank 256 mb or even two bank 128 mb DIMM's. If the PC 133 dimm's are one bank 64 mb or smaller there should be no problems. If there is a problem, there is probably a mother board bios update that will solve it.

The cost however to the IT department of solving any problem is too high for them to even bother.

My immediate answer to your question, even before I read the fact situation was YES!
 
Originally posted by: lnguyen
or, he wants to pocket the pc133 for himself and have the company buy pc100 for the machines 🙂
Click to expand...

Who buys that POS pc100 anymore? I'm even embarassed to still run pc133 on my main machine...
 
Originally posted by: Zugzwang152
Originally posted by: lnguyen
or, he wants to pocket the pc133 for himself and have the company buy pc100 for the machines 🙂
Click to expand...

Who buys that POS pc100 anymore? I'm even embarassed to still run pc133 on my main machine...
Click to expand...

😱
I still use pc133 also
 
Most of the IT guys I know realize that PC133 is backward compatible with PC100 motherboards, but will generally stick with PC100 when available for liability reasons. If it craps out, they won't get blamed for using improperly spec'd parts. This policy is especially tight with the larger companies and/or in corporate environments.
 
I've seen first hand that some motherboards will not accept PC133 (especially old ones) mainly because they try auto detect timing, and generally crap out. I haven't tried this, but you could set the memory timings to manual before placing the PC133 in and it may work (i.e set CAS latency and stuff to manual rather than leave it on SPD)
 
Originally posted by: Radiohead
Originally posted by: Zugzwang152
Originally posted by: lnguyen
or, he wants to pocket the pc133 for himself and have the company buy pc100 for the machines 🙂
Click to expand...

Who buys that POS pc100 anymore? I'm even embarassed to still run pc133 on my main machine...
Click to expand...

😱
I still use pc133 also
Click to expand...


🙁 pc133 here still, my 2nd computer is using pc100 🙁 🙁
 
I've seen first hand that some motherboards will not accept PC133 (especially old ones) mainly because they try auto detect timing, and generally crap out. I haven't tried this, but you could set the memory timings to manual before placing the PC133 in and it may work (i.e set CAS latency and stuff to manual rather than leave it on SPD)
Click to expand...

I've only seen that when going back to 66Mhz. Not from 133 to 100. And even that is very, very rare. It can usually be traced to a pos mb or ram. Even my old LX chipset takes 133 without a hitch.

 
Originally posted by: DeeTees
The problem that might crop up has nothing to do with memory speed. Some old motherboards may have a problem with high density packages. It might not be able to resolve addresses with two bank 256 mb or even two bank 128 mb DIMM's. If the PC 133 dimm's are one bank 64 mb or smaller there should be no problems. If there is a problem, there is probably a mother board bios update that will solve it.

The cost however to the IT department of solving any problem is too high for them to even bother.

My immediate answer to your question, even before I read the fact situation was YES!
Click to expand...


Yup. The only possible way they wouldn't work is if the board had issues with the density, but as someone said, that wouldn't be because it was PC133, just because it was higher density.
 
What it really boils down to is how the systems address the memory and if they read SPD information upon POST. Some BIOS defaults will give a memory error (beeps) if they read SPD information that is out of range specified. This happens on systems that have chipsets that don't officially support the PC133 spec. This would mainly happen on a brand name system. It's a crapshoot really.

Note that some people will say even if the memory works that you shouldn't do it because you're running it under spec. While that may be correct from a pure specification point of view, it certainly won't matter if you run PC133 memory at 100 or even 66 MHz. It's similar to running a 1 GHz CPU at 750 MHz providing you don't reduce the core voltage.

Cheers!
 
When I ordered higher speed ram for my motherboard it did not boot up. But this is a really old system, I'm talkin this motherboard is only allowed pc66 maximum (I think, been that long since I installed it, hehe). But I know for sure I ordered higher than the motherboard supported and never booted.
My motherboard I used was: AL440LX.
 
LOW DENSITY PC133 will work fine in any PC100 motherboard. HIGH DENSITY will not work in BX chipsets. He could be totally correct or totally wrong. It all depends on if the memory uses high density chips.
 
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