RAM speed rip-off?

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Sovereign

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Mar 21, 2005
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I bought a new G.Skill 2GB DDR2-667 kit for my laptop (Inspiron E1505). The memory works, at DDR2-533! What's with that? You can order 667MHz parts installed at build...I've checked for BIOS updates but didn't find anything new. Is there a way to force this RAM to run at its rated speed?
 
The E1505 doesnt have any memory speed adjustments in the BIOS, it runs at 533fsb / DDR533
 
Its rated at 667fsb but it wont run at that speed automatically, you either have to overclock your bus speed to 333fsb or run it async ( 4:5), its not the rams fault that your motherboard doesnt give you those options
 
Then why does Dell offer 667MHz RAM on their site (alongside the same CPU I bought that uses a 533MHz bus)? Or is that just a gigantic rip-off and they hope people will go for the "fast stuff"?
 
Do they offer 533 as well, or 667 only?

Run CPU-Z and check the SPD tab if you're really suspicious about the RAM. :)
 
Chances are the motherboard will make the proper adjustments but it has to have DELL chips installed for it to work. The ram modules that Dell sells more than likely have custom SPD settings that the the motherboard looks for. Just a guess. None of this is surprising, Compaq/HP, Dell, to a certain extent force you to buy memory from them depending on the model.
 
Sovereign said:
Then why does Dell offer 667MHz RAM on their site (alongside the same CPU I bought that uses a 533MHz bus)? Or is that just a gigantic rip-off and they hope people will go for the "fast stuff"?
Click to expand...

It runs at 533 because you bought a Core Duo T2250 that has a 533 MHz bus speed. If you had configured the laptop with a 667 MHz bus CPU, the RAM would be running at the correct speed. It's poor programming for the Web site to sell 667 MHz RAM with that CPU, but it's also poor research on your part to expect 667 MHz performance in the first place. Regardless, even if it did run at 667, the performance difference would be negligible. I just added 2GB of DDR2-667 to our T2250 laptop and it runs at 533 MHz as well. Don't worry about it.
 
I thought (obviously incorrectly) that it had a divider that would automatically ramp up the RAM speed.
 
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