The purpose of this utility?

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Can anyone explain the purpose of this utility?

EVGA SPD utility

 

[Elixer]

It is so you can alter the SPD of the DIMMs, in case your BIOS don't have a manual way of setting these, it can be done via SPD so the BIOS will autodetect the settings from the SPD.

 

[Carson Dyle]

I didn't know that could be done. Does it work with all DIMMs? Are there any other (better) utilities for accomplishing this?

I have an ASUS Z77 motherboard and G.SKILL 2x8GB DDR-3 1866 that I run at non-SPD timings. Every time I upgrade the BIOS (which has been almost monthly) the speed is reset to 1333 MHz and the timings all reset to Auto. I'd love to not have to deal with that any more.

 

[VirtualLarry]

according to the directions, it does NOT flash the actual spd on the dimms.

however, I have read that is possible to do this, with a different utility.

 

[razel]

In the laptop world where the majority of BIOS's don't allow you to choose memory timings and just use SPD, the popular ones are: Thaiphoon Burner and SPDTool. Most use Thaiphoon (a paid app) to read and grab the SPD data then use SPDTool (a free app) to write it to the DIMM.

So far it works on every laptop DIMM I used. However, it's not just the DIMM, but also a question of whether it'll work on your computer as well. The best way to answer is to simply run the program yourself and see if you can read. You are not forced to write.

If you are interested, check the 'SO-DIMMs Extreme' thread on the notebookreview forum. In the desktop world, especially self made PCs, where the BIOSs often allow you to choose timings, changing the SPD is not as necessary.

 

[Carson Dyle]

I downloaded SPDTool, but it hasn't been updated since 2007 and wasn't able to see the DIMMs.