RAM Speed and Overclocking

Sweetchuck

Hi there,

I've done a quick search on ths topic and haven't found anything which has helped, so hopefully someone out there can provide some useful info.

My home PC was purchased about 3 years ago and was pretty good spec at the time: AMD Athlon 1.8GHz, ATI Radeon 64MB, 256MB RAM, 60GB HDD. However, technology has passed it by somewhat, so I've decided to beef up its RAM quotient by 512MB.

My RAM spec is now this: 768MB DDR SD-RAM, PC2100, 266MHz, non-ECC installed on an ASUS A7V333 motherboard. The second RAM chip definitely works - I've checked with CPUz that it's installed and working fine. However, I'm a bit concerned about the speed it's running at.

I'm no expert in these matters, but I thought that when a 266MHz RAM module (or two, as the case may be) was installed, it should run at 266MHz. CPUz says it's running at 133MHz and when I check the RAM settings in BIOS, this is confirmed - the allocated speed for the RAM chips is 133MHz.

I've tried to pump this up a bit in BIOS but I don't seem to be able to - the settings for changing RAM speed are greyed out, meaning I can't select them at all.

As such, can someone answer the following questions, please?

1. Is it normal for PC2100 266MHz RAM chips to be running at only 133MHz?

2. If not, how do I go about bringing them up to a more suitable speed when my BIOS settings don't appear to allow me to do so?

Cheers for any assistance!

Brodel

Is the old RAM in your other slot 133MHz? It may be being restricted by the speeds of the older RAM.

bigglesinc

I used to run an Asus A7V and found this site to be the best knowledge on it around. http://www.a7vtroubleshooting.com/

Hope it helps.

I think the timings are right as it's double data rate so 2 x 133 ?

Sweetchuck

As stated in the original post, both RAM chips are 266MHz.

It's a bit of a head-scratcher... I've never heard of people being unable to change their BIOS settings before.

Sweetchuck

bigglesinc wrote:

I used to run an Asus A7V and found this site to be the best knowledge on it around. http://www.a7vtroubleshooting.com/

Hope it helps.

I think the timings are right as it's double data rate so 2 x 133 ?

I think you're right - I've searched a few other forums and this seems to be the case not only for my RAM but also the FSB on the ASUS A7V CPUs.

266MHz on a double-sided FSB or DDR RAM chip means 2 x 133MHz.

Many thanks for your help, Biggles!

Toxteth_OGrady

Sweetchuck wrote:

I think you're right

He is.

:cool:

TOG