Right now I have 1 gig of pc 2700 ram, and my motherboard, ABIT's IP-95, supports up to PC2 4200. Never having over- or underclocked anything, I was wondering if I would be able to use some Corsair PC2-6400 RAM http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=85025-6&prodlist=dealnews underclocked on my board. I just want to make sure there is nothing I am overlooking, because as I said I have never done this before. MY reasoning for PC2-6400 is because it is cheaper, and I plan on possibly upgrading later on.
Underclocking RAM to work on my mobo
- Thread starter Forthork
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That ram is most commonly referred to as DDR2 RAM.
It should work in your PC just fine, and it probably will not even need to be manually under clocked (it should just do it all automatically). Most likely, the motherboard will just run the RAM as fast as possible, so it will run as 533 / 400MHz RAM.
The RAM you linked, is good RAM. The PC2-6400 or 4200 etc.. basically just states the speed the RAM is designed to run at. So if you tried to run it at a much faster speed, and the RAM died, you couldn't complain. But running it at a lower speed than it is designed for, is no problem at all. And like I said, it should just work, straight out of the box.
If there are any problems though, you will be able to just tweak it in the BIOS, but I doubt you will need to. Also, Corsair are an excellent RAM manufacturer, so if you did have any trouble, you could go onto their forum and they would tell you exactly how to set it up in your BIOS.
It should work in your PC just fine, and it probably will not even need to be manually under clocked (it should just do it all automatically). Most likely, the motherboard will just run the RAM as fast as possible, so it will run as 533 / 400MHz RAM.
The RAM you linked, is good RAM. The PC2-6400 or 4200 etc.. basically just states the speed the RAM is designed to run at. So if you tried to run it at a much faster speed, and the RAM died, you couldn't complain. But running it at a lower speed than it is designed for, is no problem at all. And like I said, it should just work, straight out of the box.
If there are any problems though, you will be able to just tweak it in the BIOS, but I doubt you will need to. Also, Corsair are an excellent RAM manufacturer, so if you did have any trouble, you could go onto their forum and they would tell you exactly how to set it up in your BIOS.
captaincranky
Posts: 19,688 +8,829
Con-foooozed.....
I was under the impression that PC2700 was DDR RAM, in a 184 pin DIMM.
All the other numbers mentioned are DDR2, a 240 pin package. So does this particular motherboard have both type sockets? There are a couple of mobos that support both types. Any RAM will automatically "downclock" itself to the prevailing bus speed.
I was under the impression that PC2700 was DDR RAM, in a 184 pin DIMM.
All the other numbers mentioned are DDR2, a 240 pin package. So does this particular motherboard have both type sockets? There are a couple of mobos that support both types. Any RAM will automatically "downclock" itself to the prevailing bus speed.
Yeah, I should have mentioned, my board supports both types. That is my main problem. If it doesn't automatically underclock, I'm not sure I can change it because I can't use DDR and DDR2 at the same time (so I don't think I can boot up with a both types of sticks in, and underclock the DDR2 to work).
captaincranky
Posts: 19,688 +8,829
I Think.....
I know you can't run both types at once (DDR & DDR2), and the DIMMs must be matched. I believe that for RAM to "downclock" there normally needs to be nothing done proactively, it will merely run at the prevailing bus speed. This has been my experience with my own Intel based machine which actually has 2 different speeds of RAM Installed: 2 X 256 MB of PC3200 (400 Mhz) and 2 X 512 MB of PC2700 (333 Mhz). The machine runs in Dual Channel mode at 333Mhz (as expected) with no action being taken on my part for this to occur. As is obvious from the part numbers, all these DIMMs are DDR 184 pin units.
I know you can't run both types at once (DDR & DDR2), and the DIMMs must be matched. I believe that for RAM to "downclock" there normally needs to be nothing done proactively, it will merely run at the prevailing bus speed. This has been my experience with my own Intel based machine which actually has 2 different speeds of RAM Installed: 2 X 256 MB of PC3200 (400 Mhz) and 2 X 512 MB of PC2700 (333 Mhz). The machine runs in Dual Channel mode at 333Mhz (as expected) with no action being taken on my part for this to occur. As is obvious from the part numbers, all these DIMMs are DDR 184 pin units.
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