RAM Mhz drop after upgrade....Please HELP!!!

HI! I'm new to this forum, and this is my 1st post.



I have a P4 3.4 Mhz computer with an Asus p5p800 Motherboard, with 1 Gb Ram (2x 512 MB Samsung Dual-Channel).



About 9 months ago, I purchased another 2x512 MB.'s of ram Dual Channel from OCZ, and on boot-up, it found the 2 Gb's of ram in the dos screen, but the Mhz dropped from 400 Mhz to 332 Mhz (or somewhere around 300 ish). Why would this happen? BOTH ram's (Samsung & OCZ) were rated at 400 Mhz.



I tested the ram by creating a short video on Premiere elements 3.0, and with 1 GB ram, it took less time to create & render the video than when I had the 2 Gb's or ram. The difference was minimal, but I still would have expected it to be MUCH faster (or at least 5 minutes faster)...but it wasn't.



I now see that NCIX has 2 x 512 Mhz dual-channel Ram on sale and I would like to purchase it and try again, but I would like to know if I'm wasting my time or not? Is there perhaps a BIOS setting that I have to change? What would cause the Mhz to drop like that?

A mismatch of memory speed or timings would see that happen easy enough if the second pair of 512s were mislabeled PC2700 DDR33 memory that would see the first pair of DDR400 dimms slowed to 333mhz. The better move when upgrading memory would have been going for a pair of 1gb DDR400 dimms to see a 2gb total at 400mhz as well as being by the same brand, type, speed, and timings.

Well I purchased the OCZ memory from NCIX, and it was labelled as PC3200 DDR 400. Now, I just checked my BIOS, and the current memory CAS is 2.5, 4, 4, 8, 8. IF the ram I ordered was 3, 2, 5. would this cause an inconsistency in the Mhz frequency?

You don't get it? do you, is because you're mixing rams, the samsung is slower than the ocz so in consequence it'll reduce the speed from the 1gb ocz

Yes! Ram really needs to be matched, same brand, cas and voltages. Always try to buy the same part number as the last batch so that they match up.

A lot of the time if you populate all 4 slots the system will make the max RAM speed 1 level slower than max. ie. A board that supports PC3200 will downclock to PC2700 speeds (333.3MHz)

The pair of 2gb dimms that was seen for $329 at newegg and too costly left me to run a pair of 1gb dimms here since I didn't want all dimm slots populated. Those are now seen for $209 at the moment. While I could add another pair of the same brand memory seeing the same speed and timings they wouldn't be ideal being from a different batch.

The best move would replacing the present with a pair of 2gb dimms here and 1gb dimms there as well. That will avoid the mishap you are now seeing between those two pairs. Another drawback with all slots in use is being forced into single channel mode.

Asus boards can also be very fussy about what brand and type memory is used as well. On the old Socket A board here memtest showed all kinds of errors some 578 on a pair of Kingston 1gb VaueRam dimms as well as a matched pair of Corsair xms series DDR400 512s. Both sets were to see 0% errors later on the last 939 Asus model. There OCZ would be the better choice of the two sets until going for a pair of 1gb dimms by a good brand.

Funny you mention that, because after that OCZ ram was not working for me, I went to a local computer shop, and he got me a pair of the same ram that my system has (using the numbers off of my ram), and when I put them in...same problem, so I took them back.

If it's because I'm forcing 4 ram slots to run in linear mode, than, I don't see what the advantage is to have 4 slots available on a motherboard . I want to see performance boost, not drop, guess I'll have to look at 2x1gb sticks then.

The brand doesn't matter, I've mixed RAM brands plenty of times. It is because you are using all 4 slots. I agree that it's kind of silly to have 4 slots if you can't use them without a penalty but there are times when it is worth it.

If your board only takes 4gb of memory and 4gb is needed for large programs like CAD then you suffer from things like single mode in order to run those types of larger programs with four 1gb dimms installed. I ran into some fun things running three 256mb dimms for 768mb on an old Shuttle board some years back where there was no dual channel but other things that came up.

Alas a board that took a pair 512s was the first Asus board used here. But 98SE saw fun due to that version's 512mb limitation there. At least you could edit the autoexec.bat file or perform an MS trick to get past that.

With the newer versions seeing that barrier broken running 1-2gb became easy. That was when you could run larger memory sticks over more smaller ones. The problem with differents brands is not simply brand name but memory design. People were complaining about problems with OCZ memory on Asus boards while others saw great results.

The problem board design and chipset differences between different models not allowing for latencies and voltages for brand's memory over another's. With 4gb and more on newer boards that max at 8 and even upto 16gb the chipsets lack support for that since those were counting on the typical user installing far less on the 2-4gb boards they were originally intended for.