400 Mhz RAM on a 266 Mhz board?

[Mr. NoOne]

Hi,

I'm upgrading my inlaw's 'puter and I was wondering if I can install 512MB PC3200 (400MHz) non-ECC DDR SDRAM on his ECS K7S5A board ?

This board has 2 slots for DDR ram and according to the manual they are up to 266 Mhz memory bus.

I found the memory for $49.99 at pcmall.com: http://www.pcmall.com/pcmall/shop/de...sp?dpno=345710

For that price he's willing to get 2 x 512...
Also, if anybody knows of a better offer, let me know....

Thanks....

[Blazer06]

ahh man... i wish i bought that before i went and spent 65 for 266mhz... arg

i think that you should be able to, it will just run at 266 speeds.


Blaze

[Mr. NoOne]

yeah, I know, it looks like a good deal.....it's generic brand though.....

The board doesn't say anything about ECC or non-ECC RAM though...any ideas?

[rourkchris]

I would be very careful about using generic branded memory with that mobo as I believe it's very picky about the RAM that it'll run without problems. jerrygarcia uses those boards alot and might be of more help.

[nukes]

Yeah, but if the ram's rated at that speed, it shouldn't have any trouble. Its only with borderline sticks that the problems arise, as I think it picks a few odd timings.
I've used a load of those boards, some with Generic, some with crucial. They've never given me problems with either (Except when I put a soundblaster card in - but that's creative's fault and it was fixed in the revision 3.x board)
Plus that RAM should stand you in good stead for the future!

[Peter M]

You may run SDRAM slower than its rated speed - simply because this rated speed actually is its maximum speed. There is no relevant lower limit in SDRAM technology, SDR or DDR.

[Mr. NoOne]

ok....thanks for the replies. I ordered 2 sticks of 512 ea.

I'll let you guys know if anything goes wrong....

[John Prophet]

"You may run SDRAM slower than its rated speed - simply because this rated speed actually is its maximum speed. There is no relevant lower limit in SDRAM technology, SDR or DDR."

Peter....have you seen the newer PC133 that states it is NOT backward compatible with pc100? (maybe due to density etc)

[Peter M]

Such a statement is absolute bull. You are correct in suspecting that backward compatibility issues are always about the size and geometry of the SDRAM chips - never about its maximum speed.
Older chipsets (which happen to be PC100) often cannot handle today's larger DIMMs, but that's nothing to do with speed. It's simply because the old chipsets don't have the addressing capabilities for the current, large SDRAM chips.

[Xtreeme]

Meaning no high density mem. So persay pc133 BUT low density 64/32mb stick shouldnt have issues on a older pc100 board. that right peter? Cause Ive used that method in past and it seems to work well.

Peter Ive seen some (retailers on net)list pc133 as not being backward compat aswell in the past and I knew it was wrong. Never paid attention though-it may have all been high density (256mb and such). So to cover their butt on returns and avoid pc100 Chipsets they just say that in a general way, which is misleading. They way they say it even a pc100/133 chipset wouldnt run pc133 at 100mhz which as you said is Bull.