[3 boards, 3 types of RAM] detection and boot issues

[Rolf]

Hi,

the setting is as follows:

three Slot1 motherboards (the further one gets down the list, the harder it is to get information on the board)
a) MSI 6117
b) Gateway 4000206
c) Compaq 8915CCJ82038 from a Deskpro EP/SB with 350 MHz Pentium II

three different types of SDRAM (identified with the help of the great chipmunk.nl site
x) Infineon 128MB 133MHz with HYB39S128800CT-7 chips
y) Hyundai 32MB 66MHz with HY57V651620 TC-10 chips
z) unknown 16MB 100MHz with ACE EC82104-08FN chips

x und y used to work great together in my 6117 although from what I read in the manual that board only supports 66, 68 and 75 MHz FSB (does that have anything to do with RAM speed?). I am not sure whether I should be surprised that the Infineon 133 MHz worked without a hitch in the 6117. Is it possible that the DIMM can also run at 66 MHz and that is what happened while I had it in the MSI board? Generally speaking, what happens when mixing RAM of different speed?

Well anyway, my MSI 6117 has some issues I am working on. In the meantime I use board b) which I got in an Ebay auction together with z from a guy who thought it was an MSI 6117. I guess chances are great that the guy had the board run with the z memory he sold me but unfortunately, the board will apparently not accept neither x nor z . Once they are present I do not even get to the BIOS prompt. What strikes me as odd with this board is that it does accept the y RAM, but only in the middle slot otherwise again the board will not even get to the BIOS prompt.

At first I thought that maybe I ruined both the x and z types so I tried to get them working with board c from Compaq of a friend of mine. Again, results were negative. In the meantime I have found in the specs that the Gateway 4000206 will only take 66MHz RAM. Unfortunately, I cannot find similar information either for the MSI or the Compaq board.

I am somewhat confused about the situation and why sometimes things work while other times they do not (especially that middle slot phenomenon). Maybe this is just a configuration issue? The gateway board has the latest BIOS. Anybody willing to comment and share their insights?

Best

Rolf

[NickS]

Normally CPU clock speed has little to do with RAM speed as long as the RAM is fast enough; the RAM speed rating shows the fastest clock you can expect to work but it will generally work with slower.
The Hyundai with 10 chips - could be parity or ECC RAM. It may be that the Gateway board requires parity or ECC RAM, particularly if it was a server motherboard; the same could be true with the Compaq.

I have here a faulty stick of 256Mb ECC RAM. Some desktop motherboards will see it as 128Mb RAM; some refuse to boot.

IIRC, the 6117 clock chip can be soft programmed to do 83.3 MHz.

[Rolf]

Normally CPU clock speed has little to do with RAM speed as long as the RAM is fast enough; the RAM speed rating shows the fastest clock you can expect to work but it will generally work with slower.

Hi Nick,

thank you for the insightful comments. Since my 133MHz module should have worked under all circumstances I tried some more with the Gateway board and eventually figured out that apparently the first RAM slot is broken. At least whenever some RAM is installed there, the board will not boot. The other two slots work just fine with all the RAM now.

Best

Rolf

[spicerman]

Hello I am a little new at computer.

I wanted to confirm something. I have a biostar M7VIZ ver 8.0 board running a 2400+ AMD Sempron CPU. I put in 256 DDR 333 PC2700 ram. I wanted to know if the motherboard recognizes that it is 333mhz or do I have to set the speed with a jumper or in the BIOS?

Do you have to set anything for Ram Mhz (266, 333, 400) or board will take any once it lists mhz speeds?

Nigel...