Tom's Hardware > Forum > Motherboards & Memory > Memory > RAM Voltage and latency

RAM Voltage and latency

Forum Motherboards & Memory : Memory - RAM Voltage and latency

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SFinch   11-01-2008 at 06:25:28 PM

This is just to put my mind to rest, I recently read the following on the MSI website

Quote :

Due to the High Performance Memory design, motherboards or system configurations may or may not operate smoothly at the JEDEC (Joint Electron Device Engineering Council) standard settings (BIOS Default on the motherboard) such as DDR2 voltage, memory speeds and memory timing. Please confirm and adjust your memory setting in the BIOS accordingly for better system stability.



Having read that I thought I'd check my settings to be sure. using CPU-z and the BIOS I noted that my RAM was running at 1.8v and latency of 5-5-5-18 (auto in my BIOS).

I cross referenced that with my RAM specs and I think they may be incorrect. As I understand it my RAM should be at 2.1v and 4-4-4-12 latency, I get this from the corsair website, or at least, the closest model I can find to my RAM (the exact prduct number doesnt appear to be on the corsair website).

Here are the links to all the information I think you will be needing to help me out here :)

RAM - http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx [...] -12%2c+DHX

Motherboard - http://www.msicomputer.com/product [...] m&class=mb

Corsair website, with the closest model to my RAM being 'TWIN2X2048-6400C4' -
http://www.corsairmemory.com/products/xms2.aspx


Thanks a lot for any help guys.

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aznguy0028   11-01-2008 at 06:37:11 PM
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to get tighter timings, you have to up the voltage. go into bios and set your ram voltage to 2.1v, and you should be able to run them in 4-4-4-12 now.

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SFinch   11-01-2008 at 06:44:49 PM
- 0 +

Yeh, but the questions in whether my ram is running at its native voltage/timings, or whether its running slower than what its meant to, due to incorrect BIOS settings.

Reply to SFinch
jedimasterben   11-01-2008 at 06:48:49 PM
- 0 +

Well, the voltage doesn't necessarily have to be what the box says. I had some RAM in my previous iteration of my computer that was undervolted and ran just fine. Tighten the timings, and run Memtest on it to see if it is stable. If so, leave the voltage, the lower it is, the cooler the RAM will run. If it isn't stable, up the voltage by .1 and repeat the testing until it is stable.

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aznguy0028   11-01-2008 at 06:49:44 PM
- 0 +

oh..okay gotcha. you have to manually set it to 2.1v in bios.

i don't think when you put in ram, it runs at at the optimal voltage. when i got my ram, i had to set it to 2.2v as well (thats my ram's optimal voltage spec) b/c it was running at 1.8v in bios as well.

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jedimasterben   11-01-2008 at 06:55:09 PM
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Yeah, my G.Skill DDR2 is supposed to run 2.0v and 4-4-3-5 timings, and I was able to get those timings at 1.8v with no errors. But then I tossed in some 2GB sticks and had to up the voltage and timings. :(

Motherboards generally start up with 1.8v, which is the JEDEC standard, so they have to be changed manually.

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