[SOLVED] it seems only Micron ram works

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Tac 25

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Jul 25, 2021
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hi, I have two pc's the new one that I use for gaming is already maxed out to 32 gb DDR3, the older one is still stuck at 4 gb DDR3, because the old pc seems to accept only Micron brand ram that were the ones available for it when I got it 5 years ago.

have been spending effort trying out different kinds of DDR3 on the old pc. Want to upgrade it to 8GB, because I still use it as a backup storage, and playing games that don't work in Windows 10.

mother board is Samsung Desktop System (only two slots for ram), processor is Core e8400.

took pics..

this pair of Micron DDR3 ram are the ones currently installed and working on old pc.

zlfzd2.JPG

these Samsung DDR3 work fine when tested on the newer pc, but for some reason, are not accepted by the old board.

i7838o.JPG

a2byji.JPG

is this a brand issue, or something else?

anyone with experience on this, please help. thanks.
 
Solution
This isn't a driver issue or anything like that. I have older lga775 systems that can take ddr3 and the limitation is in the density and construction of the module as the newer designed modules that are currently available were never compatible with the older motherboards.

If you look at the old Micron memory, you can clearly see that it is a 2Rx8 construction. This is effectively 2x 1GB modules on a single module in terms of how it operates. Generally these worked well with lga775 systems.

If you look at the Samsung modules they are all 1Rx8 modules, so the 2GB is appearing as a single 2GB DDR3 module (which may not have been supported), and the 4GB module is also appearing as a single 4GB module, which was almost certainly never...
Well, I'm definitely well aware of the issues with low density versus high density memory, but I thought for sure that was a pre-LGA 775 issue. But it's actually been a while since I've dealt with that in any boxes on my workbench or in threads here, so I might have been misremembering.
 
Yep, those issues were still present in the lga775 days when ddr3 came on the scene. I can only imagine trying to find the right ram for something much older--32-pin simms and dimms and 8-bit dimms and simms, and even sipps! It would be nearly impossible to get ram for some of this stuff today at prices cheaper than when it was new. :(
 

Tac 25

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Jul 25, 2021
1,391
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3,890
You're welcome. Wait, so no mail at all?!?! Are you in the USA?

from the Philippines. We are in strict quarantine until Aug 20. Someone died of the virus, literally 20 or 30 meters only from where I work, soldiers sealed off that street, and took those who were in contact with the person who died to a quarantine area. Non-essentials like post office are closed until further notice.
__

when post office are open again, I will be revisiting the ebay links you posted. :)

also gonna check local stores if they may have some 2rx still in stock.
 
I can't seem to verify that your sticks are low density through a search, but if you CAN verify that the memory in your system IS the older low density DDR3, then it's likely that your problem is simply that your other DDR3 is newer high density DDR3, in which case it's a LOT more likely that ANY low density DDR3 with similar specs to what you have installed already, should work, if you are not able to find the exact same kit.
 
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from the Philippines. We are in strict quarantine until Aug 20. Someone died of the virus, literally 20 or 30 meters only from where I work, soldiers sealed off that street, and took those who were in contact with the person who died to a quarantine area. Non-essentials like post office are closed until further notice.
__

when post office are open again, I will be revisiting the ebay links you posted. :)

also gonna check local stores if they may have some 2rx still in stock.
Wow, that's some good measures. Here in the US in some areas, we just let people run around with the virus and kill others. :( No contact tracing, no quarantine enforcement almost anywhere. I'm glad to see your government taking this much more seriously than ours did. Because of our laxed position, my dad died from covid. I think he would be alive today if our country did what yours is doing.

Take care and be safe. My wife has a soft spot for the Philippines--she live in Manilla for 2 years and still has several friends there. She tells me nothing but great things about the people. :) When we lived in the Chicago area we went to a Jolly Bee! They have one here in the US! :D
 

Tac 25

Estimable
Jul 25, 2021
1,391
421
3,890
@SamirD

first, sorry to hear about your dad. I have three good friends from the us.. 2 guys and a girl. One of the guys is making efforts to get himself vaccinated (I'm an admin in his mtg forum), the other guy (a friend for more than 10 years, met him in anime forum) is paranoid and thinks vaccines are made to kill, and the girl (friend for almost 10 years as well) is sort of neutral because she is in a place where infections are few. As for me, got vaccinated about a month ago, because this virus is real and can really kill, it's not fake news. - you keep safe too. Anyway, we can continue this in pm's if you like to talk about it more. A moderator might get mad for us being off topic. :)
___

back on topic.

have an important question. Have seen some people say that the max speed of 2rx ram an lga 775 motherboard could handle is the 10600 variety? Is this true. I'm a bit confused because have seen 2rx 12800 rams floating around some stores which seem to be made for lga 775 as well?

noting that the Micron 2rx rams on my old pc (pics on first post) are 10600.. I'm now mostly on the hunt for 4gb DDR3 2rx rams at 10600, because I now fear that the 2rx 12800 variety might not work. Do you have friends or have encountered people who have succesfully used 2rx 12800 on their lga775 boards? Any info would be appreciated.

___

another question.. what does the "-11-11-B1" mean?

4GB 2RX8 PC3-12800U-11-11-B1
 
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Mods are pretty chill about topics like this that are intertwined within the main one ime, so I think we'll be okay. ;)

All I can say is if the vaccines are made to kill, I would know a lot of dead people by now, lol. The virus is real and the biggest spreader is being close to people so both friends who are not vaccinated will be fine if they don't come into any contact with people. But there's going to be some point in the future where this won't be possible and the full details about the vaccine will be known by then too so they can make an informed decision.

As far as the memory, most lga775 systems maxed out at 800Mhz (pc2-6400), so even 1066Mhz (pc2-8500) will be faster than most systems can handle. DDR3 pretty much starts with 1333Mhz, so PC3-10600 is about as slow as you can get, and yet is faster than even overclocked DDR2 modules were back in the day. And the thing is, if there were faster chips available at the time it was probably possible to make compatible PC3-12800 modules. And that's the crux of your problem (and any lga DDR3 memory upgrade)--finding modules of a certain construction that's compatible, and you can't tell that from the speed ratings, although I think it's pretty safe to assume that modules faster than 1600Mhz probably won't work.

Oh and the numbers after generally refer to the timing of the modules. Like one that would say -10-9-10 would have tighter timings, which in theory should be faster.
 
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ok, thanks for that info. This hunt for usable ram is getting me excited, like a detective game. It will be sure, that I will try at least once before giving up on this.
That it can be! And being the first or only person in the world to do/have done something (at least by online search results) is pretty thrilling. Like when I discovered my z420 could use 32GB LRDIMMs--it wasn't spec'd to use ecc reg dimms moreless LR dimms! And because I had so many of them, I was able to completely blow away the known memory limit for this machine from 32GB to 256GB, and as far as I know I'm the first to do it. :D Pretty cool. :)

But sometimes such breakthroughs take a lot of time and patience to figure out. I was THE person that figured out how to re-learn TPMS sensors on the Suzuki Kizashi without requiring the dealership or the dealership tool, but it took months to get to that point:
https://www.kizashiclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=2764
 
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Tac 25

Estimable
Jul 25, 2021
1,391
421
3,890
I can't seem to verify that your sticks are low density through a search, but if you CAN verify that the memory in your system IS the older low density DDR3, then it's likely that your problem is simply that your other DDR3 is newer high density DDR3, in which case it's a LOT more likely that ANY low density DDR3 with similar specs to what you have installed already, should work, if you are not able to find the exact same kit.


yeah, that seems to be the issue. Sorry, for late reply to your post.

anyway, it seems I finally found the solution in the post above.
 

Tac 25

Estimable
Jul 25, 2021
1,391
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3,890
as I have said, not giving up on this. Just gathered enough funds.

have looked again today. Unfortunately, F3-10666CL9D-8GBNT seems to be sold out at Newegg.

It's only available on Neweggbusiness, and I can't make an account there. :(

need to find a place where this exact kind of ram is still sold.

___

EDIT:


found second hand on ebay. Would probably try to order it later today.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/383986064198
 
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Tac 25

Estimable
Jul 25, 2021
1,391
421
3,890
a little more update:

tried to register on ebay today, and for some reason I was automatically banned when trying to edit shipping address. Don't know what went wrong, it's the same email I use to buy things in Aliexpress for years now.

F3-10666CL9D-8GBNT

Newegg - out of stock.

https://www.newegg.com/g-skill-8gb-240-pin-ddr3-sdram/p/N82E16820231424

Neweggbusiness - is it fine if I use Newegg account to buy from this place? This place is my last hope.

https://www.neweggbusiness.com/product/product.aspx?item=9siv374bp98358
 
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Tac 25

Estimable
Jul 25, 2021
1,391
421
3,890
thanks, did not know about that. Would try when time allows.

since I'm stuck on the ram upgrade.. there is also an ongoing plan B.. my gaming pc (on sig) is in the process of getting a Gpu update (thread for reference https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...-ti-but-only-215mm-or-less-in-length.3729594/) and if it does get a better gpu, then I can move the 1050ti it is currently using to this backup pc (on sig), should give a little more capability to this old system. Although it is preferable if I can also up the ram to 8gb, so I'll check out the ebay help link you gave at some pont.
 
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It's possible, but to be honest the majority of systems I've seen that were old enough to require older low density DDR3, or anything older, especially OEM systems that long ago stopped offering BIOS updates, have a very poor chance of being compatible with any Nvidia graphics card newer than the Maxwell (900 series) cards and many of them won't work with anything newer than the 700 series cards. I'd make a real attempt to verify that there are users out there that have been able to get a GTX 1050 ti to work on your exact motherboard before counting on it.

I'm certainly not saying it won't, but don't count on it without verifying it first.
 

Tac 25

Estimable
Jul 25, 2021
1,391
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3,890
the backup pc is working well with a GT 1030 (on sig), so I have the feeling it will accept a 1050ti as well.

anyway, this ram upgrade is proving to be the real challenge. Hopefully, can be resolved before the year ends.
 
The problem you might run into is that the GT 1030 tended to be capable of running on a lot of non-UEFI (Older style BIOS) motherboards, even those that haven't been updated in the near past (Even the near past of THAT time, when the cards were new) but mostly the GTX 1050 and higher Pascal cards were VERY spotty when it came to running on non-UEFI motherboards especially if it was one that had no BIOS updates for a while. So, could go either way.
 

Tac 25

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Jul 25, 2021
1,391
421
3,890
@Darkbreeze

finally able to continue my side project of upgrading the ram on this old pc.

unforunately, did not work for some reason.

the pc has two 2 gb Micron ram that works..

zlfzd2.JPG

I obtained 4 gb micron on the same speed, and also 2rx kind. But for some reason the system still beeps and won't accept the 4gb ram stick. Have already tested the new ram, and they work on my other pc, so I'm sure the new ram is not dead.

6xbe1t.JPG

is there something I could adjust in bios or msconfig?
 

Tac 25

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Jul 25, 2021
1,391
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3,890
other pc is a dell optiplex 7010. It's the budget gaming pc on my sig. I took out one 8gb ram stick, and put in the new 4gb to test it. The total ram in cpuid is 28 gb, so the new ram works.

Sadly, it's time to give up on this, cannot spare anymore cash. Plenty of expenses coming, because Christmas is near. This old pc is only a backup anyway, it's purpose is for backup data storage, and playing old games only. So 4gb ram should be fine.
 
If your other PC is an Optiplex 7010, and the new RAM you got works in that system, then you bough the WRONG type of memory for your other system as I'm pretty sure we explicitly determined earlier in this thread that you needed LOW DENSITY DDR3, not the newer high density DDR3, for that system. So, same problem as before. And the chances are good that on many older systems that DO require low density memory, they also may not support any module with 4GB DIMMs as they weren't very common back then and even less common for low density DIMMs.