Slow memory, Opinions?

[Lorne]

Though this system has been running 100% stable for 5 yrs now it has been really slow, But as time goes by it needs to start working correctly.
Sandra benchmark scores 7% eficiancy (extreamly high latency), It list nothing for memory info as do all other programs like CPUZ
Ive traced it down to the MB itself, 2 different memory setups work fine on another system so its not the ramstick.

Could a inafficiant PSU cause the MB to read ram info incorrectly and still be 100% stable but run slow?, Sandra reports -5v as .29v, Whats the -5v used for anyways?

Its an old Supermicro P4DSE, 2x Xeon 1.8Ghz, 2x 1G FullyBufferd memory, OS doesnt matter as it has no affects.
This thing is even really slow at posting because of this problem.

 

[myocardia]

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[jaqie]

Actually myocardia, you didn't catch the NEGATIVE on that. as of ATX 2.0 (I believe that's the version) there is no -5V requirement, so any or no voltage shown there is normal, as nothing uses it anymore and hasn't for years. The negative 12 volt rail is barely if ever used nowadays, as well.

OP: A power supply can not make a system simply run slow. It can do all sorts of other things, but not that.
The motherboard uses PC2100 DDR, almost certainly single channel, ECC/registered ram, there's your high memory latency and low memory bandwidth right there. Also, the FSB on that system is ungodly slow now as are the P4 (netburst) based xeons. A good single $50 CPU will outrun it nowadays, to be honest. If it feels slow, you should simply upgrade to a nice C2D system.

 

[Lorne]

The CPU's Are not even runing at max yet, Memory is so slow that the CPU's are lucky to break 25% usage indavidualy or all together, CPU benchmarks show good or competative results And renders well if not memory intensive but all together the machine runs like a P120.

Sandra and a couple other benchmark programs show only a bandwidth of 236MB sec, Which is kind of sad even for SDram and the old PC133 and I know it has nothing to do with being FBDDR, Ive seen this memory boot in another system and works fine for FBDDR and speed rating.

I can only assume there are issues with the Northbridge being bad but not bad enough to cause instabillity.

 

[myocardia]

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