BIOS Memory Settings... help.

Hello all. After reading an article about boosting system performance by twinking the BIOS, I did some minor tweaking myself. I have a few questions.

I am currently using one 512 Meg DIMM from Crucial with these specs:

DDR PC2100 • CL=2.5 • Unbuffered • Non-parity • 7.5ns • 2.5V • 64Meg x 64

In the bios (by making SDRAM settings manual), I dropped the CAS Latency to 2.0(Auto set at 2.5) and the RAS to CAS Delay to 2T (auto set at 3T), and RAS precharge time to 5T (auto set at 6T).

I ran PCMark2002 After changing the RAS to CAS delay and the RAS precharge time and went from:

CPU 4817
Memory 3081
HDD 1115

TO,

CPU 4838
Mem 3121
HDD 1108

and then when I changed the CAS Latency, I jumped up to:

CPU- 4855
Mem- 3213
HDD- 1119.

Im happy with those improvements, I just want to ask whether this can be damaging to my Memory or any part of my computer. Is there anything I should not do, and should I go back to the auto settings? Thanks.

I had one other question. While Looking at the System Info in PCMark2002, I knowticed that although it recognizes 510 Megs of my ram, it says I only have about 300-400 Free. Even when I reboot, it still shows about 380 Megs Free. Is this right? Shouldnt that be closer to 510, and is there anyway to increase the free memory. Thanks again.


-Jarek

Ok, thanks

Now I just need to know if its ok to do this.

-Jarek