New memory latency question

Hi there,

 

I received my XMS TWINX2048-3200 kit tonight and the install went perfectly. I am running an ASUS P4P800SE motherboard and I placed the two sticks in the appropriate dual channel slots. I went into BIOS and set the memory timings to use the SPD chip and rebooted. System came up fine, everything is working well. The thing is, when I go into CPU-Z (versions 1.30 and 1.31) under the memory tab it shows 2048MB of RAM running in dual channel and performance mode but the timings are 2.5-3-3-6. On the SPD tab they are listed as 3-3-3-8. The memory I took out was a Corsair Value Select Kit VS1GBKIT400 and it ran at 2.5-3-3-8 (or 2.5-3-3-6, I can't remember exactly now). Does this make any sense? Should I be worried, or be happy that I am getting better than I ordered or is this some kind of BIOS read error and can be corrected?

Please let me know what you think. Thank you.

Sometimes Windows apps can have a hard time reading BIOS settings... The numbers in your BIOS are the real ones however...

The thing is, with the timings set to SPD there is no way to tell what they are set at in BIOS. I guess I could set them to their rated specs manually and go from there. I just got kicked to the desktop in Battlefield 2, I hope it isn't related to the new memory or its settings. I haven't had that issue in a long time.

 

BTW, thx for the quick reply.

Some memory is set in SPD to industry standards, not what it will actually do. The best bet is to go into your BIOS and select the manual settings and set the timings per spec, and the same for DDR voltage.

Well I have tried manually setting timings in BIOS but CPU-Z still reports them as 2.5-3-3-6. I don't know who is right. I have been experiencing some general wierdness tonight after installing the RAM. I got kicked to the desktop from Battlefield 2 twice tonight before I upped the memory voltage to 2.75 volts. That seemed to help with stability as I was able to play for a few hours without issue. Then my system froze solid, requiring a hard reboot. I went back into BIOS to double-check my settings and they are still set manually to 3-3-3-8. So I don't know what gives at this moment... :confused:

Hopefully The RAM GUY will have an idea or two.

Right now the memory is set manually to 3-3-3-8-4, DDR voltage is 2.75V and memory acceleration is enabled (it is set to standard, not turbo). I reloaded setup defaults and then went back and entered the settings again but CPU-Z still shows the memory at 2.5-3-3-6. Could this be a result of the memory acclereation? I had it enabled with the Value Selecy Kit that was in there before and it didn't seem to cause any problems.

IIRC, the CPU is set to 200 MHz FSB. The DDR volage is 2.75Volts. Performance mode is set to Standard (choices are Auto, Standard, Turbo). Memory Acceleration is set to enabled (chioces are Auto, Enabled). Everything else should be set to default. I am on my server right now because my main system is running memtest86 at the moment. It is at 93% with no errors. Memtest also identifies the timings as 2.5-3-3-6/Dual Channel/ PAT: Enabled. If you need anything else, please let me know.

Thanks,

Chris

 

Update: Okay I am more confused now... Something was bothering me here. CPU-Z and memtest both said that even though my FSB was set to 200MHz in BIOS that it was reporting it as 199Mhz, resulting in a tiny underclock. So I went into BIOS and just for "S's & G's" I changed the FSB from 200 to 201 and all of the memory timings set themselves properly. Both memtest and CPU-Z report 3-3-3-8 now, even using the SPD option. The odd thing is, CPU-Z says the memory is in dual channel and performance mode is enabled, but memtest86 now says PAT is disabled. Should I believe one over the other? Does it really matter? Will I notice any difference between 2.5-3-3-6 and 3-3-3-8? Does this make any sense?

Thanks for the replies and the followthrough.