RAM voltage support

JohnJSal

JohnJSal

Active Member
If a mobo's specs list 1.8V, does it hurt to use RAM that is listed as 2.2V? Is anything special required to be done if you do this?
 
If the memory requires or recommends the higher voltage setting it wouldn't be suitable if the board you have only sees 1.8v. It would likely fail to work. For memory that sees a wider range like 1.8-2v you could use that at the lower voltage seen on the board there. 2.2v might allow downwards of 1.9v if not 2v as the lowest you can set it to.
 
I just installed some Patriot Extreme Performance PC2 6400 RAM in someone's Dell. The manufacturer's specified voltage was 2.0 volts. Dell BIOS has no option to increase voltage with RAM. The PC2 6400 memory is running at 1.8 volts and PC2 5300 speeds but it works.

If the specified voltage was 2.2 volts would the memory not work at 1.8 volts?
 
It depends what motherboard you are talking about, because the 965 motherboards would not work with a lot of memory which required more then 1.8-1.9v.
 
When a board says it supports memory voltage of 1.8 it means that it supports down to 1.8 volts, doesnt mean that it going to boot the boards memory at 1.8 volts
 
StrangleHold said:
When a board says it supports memory voltage of 1.8 it means that it supports down to 1.8 volts, doesnt mean that it going to boot the boards memory at 1.8 volts
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With the 965 chipset the motherboard would only set the memory voltage to a maximum of 1.8v, however you can manually set it higher to 2.2v for instance.

Thats why a lot of people were having issues with several types of RAM with the 965 boards, because a lot of higher clocked memory runs at higher voltages, and it's simply not stable at 1.8v to boot.
 
Good to know! I chose some Kingston ValueRAM that runs at 1.8V, so I shouldn't have an issue. I'm not really advanced enough to know how (or want) to mess with all those intricate settings yet! :)
 
I ran 2gb of Kingston ValueRam DDR400 first late on an old Socket A case and then still now running on the last 939 I upgraded a family member with. Even the Hyper X 6400 memory now used will run between 1.8v-2v without problem.

Ocing is a different story to begin with over what the standard for any board where you then alter settings in the bios manually and hopefully very carefully as well. The 1.8v seen on the model there is the normal stock default voltage not simply that it supports turning that down from anything higher. That's simply where it starts at.
 
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