Runs at 266 but not 333mhz

k_slic3

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Feb 19, 2013
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On an older system I have I had a bad ram stick in it so I bought 2 new sticks of Kingston Hyper x DDR2 1GB. Now the sticks are pc6400 but the board can only run them to 333mhz in the bios.

Problem I'm having is, when I do have the ram clock set to 333mhz, and BOTH sticks installed, the system becomes very unstable and there are memory errors accoding to memcheck. If I just have ONE stick installed (either stick in either slot, I've check them all) the system runs fine with the clock set to 333mhz. I can get BOTH sticks to work, but I have to reduse the Mhz to 266.

Anyone have any idea what could be causing this? Possibly the ram voltage needs to be adjusted or something? I'm prety computer literate but this has me stuck...
 

k_slic3

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Feb 19, 2013
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IDK why it would offer it in the BIOS if it's not supported, that doesn't seem possible.

From the spec sheet:
"Supports DDR400/333 DDR SDRAM or DDR2 667/533/400 DDR2 SDRAM"
 

roaddoc326

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Jan 26, 2012
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it supports DDR 333 and you bought a 333 DDR2, which for DDR2 it says supports 667/533/400...perhaps that is why.
 

notlaw69

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Feb 17, 2013
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I'm no expert, just learning myself. I found a similar problem with the PC2-6400 RAM I installed (rated at 800MHz) that was/is running at 533MHz (same as PC2-4200). Turns out my mobo and PCU have a FSB (Front-Side Bus) rated at the 533MHz speed. I've been LED TO BELIEVE that with an improved CPU with an 800 FSB, my memory will follow suit, regardless of mobo specs, since they were published at a time before this compatible CPU had been created. I will find out very soon, as I've bought a Pentium D 945 on ebay, arriving at the end of this week :D You can find your FSB specs for your mobo, as you probably already have, but what about the FSB from your CPU? I'm "hoping" that's my limiting factor. I will post again when I find out if a change will do me good! Also, download CPU-Z @ www.cpuid.com (free). In a few seconds it shows real-time CPU freq, BIOS, mem stats, etc. It's a quick download too.

Anyone see issues with this line of thought? Newbie here, so I welcome critic...

Dell Dimension E510
Pentium 4 521 (Prescott) @ 2.8GHz
OEM Mobo 0HJ054, BIOS ver A07
RAM 4GB (4x1GB) PC2-6400 G.Skill
OEM 80GB HDD, WD 1TB HDD
OEM GPU Radeon X300SE 128MB Hypermem
 

notlaw69

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Feb 17, 2013
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Well, new cpu installed, runs MUCH faster! But, as I feared, my ram is still clocking at 533. Oh well, I can live with this for sure. Till my next project. Which will be the ssd sitting right here. Just waiting on $ for win7 so I can do clean install, get away from xp :)