Dell dimension 3000 bios

[PaulMM]

Hello,
Has the Dell Dimension 3000 ever run with a 400 MHz memory clock speed? I just noticed that this one has DDR 400MHz PC3200 memory, but is only running at 333 MHz.

 

[COLGeek]

I have seen similar Dell's and they too run at 333 regardless if whether 400Mhz DDR is installed. May be a chipset limitation, but likely a self imposed limitation designed by Dell to ensure maximum stability. Love 'em or hate 'em, but Dells in their untweakable configs do tend to last forever.

 

[PaulMM]

They should not claim that if you use DDR 400MHz PC3200 memory it will run at 400MHz. If it was only designed for 333MHz, why didn't they install PC2700 memory?

 

[COLGeek]

Could have been simply what was available. Regardless, from a user perspective, there is no noticeable performance difference between the 2 speeds.

 

[PaulMM]

Using what was available doesn't seem right. I believe that their web site says that it will run at either speed, depending on the type of memory installed.

Do you think that Dell, or any manufacturer, would intentionally cut corners and mislead consumers in order to sell their product?

I wonder if the earlier versions of the BIOS had this problem. I upgraded to version A03 before I noticed this defect.

BTW, this belongs to my daughter-in-law and I was working on it for other problems when I found this glitch.

I am a retired IT tech. I cleared up all the other problems without having to replace any parts, and decided to max out the memory. It went from 512 MB to2 GB, and is running faster and error-free.

I'm just disappointed that the money I spent on 400MHz modules appears to be wasted, and it is out of my pocket, not hers.( I love my daughter-in-law. She's very good to my Son)

 

[COLGeek]

Loaded questions there. Do vendors take shortcuts....yes, but that would be a dissertation in and of itself. In this case, it is hard to tell.

One issue we didn't discuss was how some older DDR memory based systems had some built-in speed limitations, they would clock back from 400 to 333 when memory was maxed out. This limitation is tied to memory standards (or the lack of) when DDR was king of the memory standards.

Because not all vendors applied the standards correctly, vendors would clock systems back to 333 to ensure stability over the minor increase in performance at the 400 level. On "generic" motherboards, users could manually enter the BIOS to reconfigure back to the higher speed settings.

With your daughter-in-law's Dell, as you know, there are very limited BIOS options and I am sure memory speed in not modifiable. In Dell's defense (I don't say that often), this is probably the case with this system.

Anyway, you are a good man to do this for her. HOOAH!!!

 

[PaulMM]

Best answer selected by PaulMM.

 

[PaulMM]

Well, I guess it's time to quit. Thanks, COLGeek, for your responses. I guess the computer won this time.