New RAM reducing clock speed

LSR

New Member
Hey,

Following on from my question yesterday, I added 4GB of 800MHz RAM to my current 2GB of 800MHz RAM.

When I check my clock speed in CPU-Z, it says it's running at 333MHz. Why would this be?

The only thing I can think of is because the 2GB I was previously using was running at 5-5-5-18. The new RAM says 5-5-5-15. CPU-Z tells me the RAM is running at 5-5-5-15, so perhaps the motherboard runs the RAM slower but at the faster timings?

How should I fix this, and is it a problem?
 
I'm guessing that you installed DDR2 800? The problem might be that the speed has been set to 333MHz instead of 400MHz. (DDR2 667 vs. DDR2 800.) If you change the values in your bios you should be able to get the speed back up. You might need to bump the voltage a bit in order to get it to boot.
 
Yeah, it was DDR2 800 I added to DDR2 800 already.

So I can just go into the BIOS and whack it up to 400? I'm always a little over-cautious about damaging components and stuff.. if it doesn't boot, it won't damage it and I can just reset to 333, yeah?

One other thing - I'm guessing you can change timings in the BIOS. Do I want to put the timings to what it was prior to adding this new RAM?
 
So I can just go into the BIOS and whack it up to 400? I'm always a little over-cautious about damaging components and stuff.. if it doesn't boot, it won't damage it and I can just reset to 333, yeah?

One other thing - I'm guessing you can change timings in the BIOS. Do I want to put the timings to what it was prior to adding this new RAM?
If it doesn't boot it should reset back to your previous settings. If not, you just need to reset the CMOS. There's usually a jumper to do that or you can unplug your computer and pull the battery for a few minutes.

You can change the timings if you'd like, if you know what your RAM is supposed to run at (the old and the new) then you can set it to the slower of the 2 settings but it should do that automatically.
 
I'm sure it was at 5-5-5-18 before, now CPU-Z says it's 5-5-5-15.

5-5-5-15 is faster, right, so it's upped my previous RAM to faster timings?
 
It must have been 5-5-5-15 before but you won't notice any difference between the 2. Even when benchmarking it will be minimal.
 
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