why is my memory so low scoring?

[Steve325]

I score a 5 with DDR2 800 @ 887 mhz, its OCZ btw

everyone else I see is scoring 5.6-5.8 with DDR2 800, not even OC'ed!!!

SCORE

 

[Lemon law]

To Steve235,

Knowing little of the details, I am tempted to speculate that despite your hardware being capable of doing better, your bios has not been too smart in getting things configured correctly. In my case I have my memory slots filled with PC 3200 ram, but my bios wants to run them at pc2100 speeds. And I have had to learn to go into the bios and add the smarts the bios lacked by manually setting various settings. And now I am getting what I should have---which is not overclocking---but it does involve the same skills over clockers use. And one thing you also need is to be willing to document and be open to old fashioned trial and error.

And for you to even start having a prayer in doing that its going to gasp take some self study---but you start that process by downloading and carefully reading your mobo manual. Then you need various benchmarking programs to find out exactly the ram timings you have---then you can back compare when your ram should run at. And you may also discover that you are being mis lead by the benchmark you have--because the poor memory score may be due to something else. Something like a missing driver for your processor's memory controller could do the same.

But you evidently have vista---which I have no familiarity with. So its hard for me to recommend exact benchmarking programs because I don't know off the top of my head which ones are vista compatible. And in that area those more familiar with vista should guide you.

 

[Steve325]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
To Steve235,

Knowing little of the details, I am tempted to speculate that despite your hardware being capable of doing better, your bios has not been too smart in getting things configured correctly. In my case I have my memory slots filled with PC 3200 ram, but my bios wants to run them at pc2100 speeds. And I have had to learn to go into the bios and add the smarts the bios lacked by manually setting various settings. And now I am getting what I should have---which is not overclocking---but it does involve the same skills over clockers use. And one thing you also need is to be willing to document and be open to old fashioned trial and error.

And for you to even start having a prayer in doing that its going to gasp take some self study---but you start that process by downloading and carefully reading your mobo manual. Then you need various benchmarking programs to find out exactly the ram timings you have---then you can back compare when your ram should run at. And you may also discover that you are being mis lead by the benchmark you have--because the poor memory score may be due to something else. Something like a missing driver for your processor's memory controller could do the same.

But you evidently have vista---which I have no familiarity with. So its hard for me to recommend exact benchmarking programs because I don't know off the top of my head which ones are vista compatible. And in that area those more familiar with vista should guide you.

well I have tried messing with many settings. From bumping up the FSB speeds to changing the latency (4-4-4-12) right now. Dual channel and single channel.

I'm running 9x330 (2.66 multiplier) which is like 887 FSB.

Even with these settings changed. I don't even see a difference in score with any of them. It seems like it's just stuck at a 5 and that's the best this memory can do

 

[Azimuth40]

Why don't you get a copy of CPUz or Everest and see what they tell you your memory is set at. It will not be the first time that a BIOS overruled manual settings during POST.

 

[Steve325]

need a little more info on these products. The specs of the ram said it was supposed to be 5-5-5-15, which I tried and didn't get anything different out of it

It's the OCZ Spec Ops series

 

[Azimuth40]

Here you go they are both free or have free versions

Link to CPU-Z authors site

Everest freeware home edition They pretty much went commercial after this edition

 

[Narse]

9x330 would be a multiplier of 9 and the FSB of 330 witch would give you a 2970 CPU speed, and a DDR memory rate of 660 (DDR2 is FSB x2) I really have no idea where you got the 2.66 from unless that is a MB setting, IE running async ram like a ratio of FSB to memory at 1:2.66 and thats 877.8


My Memory score in Vista is 5.9, I am Running DDR2 800mhz at 500mhz FSB(DDR2 1000)

 

[Steve325]

it is a 2.66 mutliplier. I just tried to run your settings, started by running at 430x2 with a 6 multiplier and every boot attempt it would just reset itself to "CPU HOST CONTROLLER - DISABLED" so I'd lose my overclock. This is less of an overclock than before... I don't get it. I put it back on a 2.66 multiplier x 330 and it boots just fine

 

[Steve325]

I give up on this. even at 350x9 (3.1x ghz) I am not even seeing it budge. It's still stuck at 5.0

 

[Lemon law]

To Steve235,

What you tell your bios to run at and what speed the memory actually runs at may well be two totally different things. Which is why I and other have recommended various benchmark programs that will tell you actual memory speeds----and there often are a pile of different bios setting you have to run through to find that magic tweak that finally gets the memory running right.---and you are just trying a few. In my case it was something counter intuitive in memory compatibility mode---it would seem that the bios would be more tolerant using compatibility mode but I only got an improvement when I disabled it.

But until you have benchmarking programs, you don't know what memory speeds you are running at---and a benchmark program will also give your hard numbers on things like memory reads and writes. And then you can get hard numbers to document and compare to see what moves you up hill, downhill, or stays the same. And benchmarking programs will also allow you to test other subsystems of your computer related to memory---and you could well discover that its some other subsystem in your computer that
is bottlenecking your memory scores---and that you are barking up the totally wrong wrong tree. And the benchmarking program may point out the right tree to bark up.

Without a benchmarking program---you are flying blind and can't see anything. And with all the very good and free programs available---why are you refusing to take the advice?

Benchmarking programs are always the place to start when you want improvements in performance. And with so many mobo, bios, and memory combinations, its more trial and error black art than it is a science. And you will only make progress by being smart, open to trial and error, and very systematic in documentation. Half assed shortcuts seldom work. And don't tell us about what you set in the bios, tell us about what speed the memory is actually running at.

And if you are getting cpu host controller disabled errors---have you tried bios updates, newer drivers for the cpu, and the rest of the research you should be doing at your mobo's makers website? If you are having these problems, surely others have too, and a fix may be already posted at the website.

 

[RebateMonger]

OCZ made its first reputation by selling overclocked PC3200 memory modules which had SPD chips that said PC2700. Motherboards that paid attention to the SPD chips would set the memory for the "correct" PC2700 speed.

As others mentioned, it'd be worthwhile to find out what those memory modules are actually rated at and at what speed they're running at.