Dumb Newbie needs memory setting help

[floyd19]

Here is my set up
intel 6600 2.4ghz
2 sticks 1gb conair cm2x1024 8500cd5 set in dual channel
asus 5pb dexlue mobo bios 1004
conair 650watt psu

I ran cpu-z
the setting came up as:
voltage 2.6
core speed flipping between 1600 & 2400
fsb 266.7
bus speed 1066

the memory tab only shows one reading of 2048mbytes

the spd tab is showing
pc6400 (400mhz) max speed

the two colums give me

first colum 270mhz 4-4-4-13

the second is 400 5-5-5-18

I thought they came out of the box at 5-5-5-15??

What do I need to do in the bios (or anywhere else for that matter) to get the speeds up to at least break the bottle neck?

And why on cpu-z am i not getting all of the info on the memory tab?

Thanks in advance,
floyd

 

[nvalhalla]

I don't know what's being volted at 2.6, but I hope to God it's not your CPU or RAM! CPU-Z doesn't report nearly anything correct for me, so don't worry about that. As for setting timings in BIOS, press Del during POST, In the BIOS there should be an advanced setting that has DIMM or DRAM settings. In there is the option for Auto or Manual timings. Set to manual and there should be all the timing options in there. Now, if the RAM is running 5-5-5-18, and is rated for 5-5-5-15, I wouldn't really worry about it. You can change that one value to 15 and speed up your RAM .001%, but it won't do you a bit of good in anything. If you want to get brave you can tighten to 4-4-4-12, but that too won't get you any noticeable speed improvements. It will also likely require a bump in DRAM or DIMM voltage from the 1.8v stock. My advise is take a look around and try some timing changes, but don't lose sleep about it. Timings have almost no effect (~2%) on real world performance.