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RAM Upgrade Question

M

max_raid

n00b
Joined
Mar 26, 2004
Messages
7
Hey all. I'm hoping someone out there can help me out. I recently purchased ram from crucial.com (DDR PC3200, CL=3.0, non-ECC) in the form of 2x512mb. I ordered my dimension xps gen 2 with 1 GB of ram which was installed in bank 1 (slots 1 & 2 each containing a stick of 512). After installing the new memory into bank 2, the system boots and acknowledges the new configuration of 2 GB. The problem I'm having is when I run the utility CPU-Z, under the memory tab, "performance mode" is disabled (no longer in dual channel mode). When I go into the bios, under memory, dual mode is displayed and unchangeable.

At this point I'm not sure what exactly I should do. After posting on multiple forums and speaking to a Crucial representative, I'm almost positive the memory I introduced has the same specifications as the memory I received from Dell.

Can anyone help?

Appreciate it.
 
Are you sure about that? As far as I know, Dell uses its own crappy RAMBUS modules instead of an intelligent DDR RAM setup. It's very possible that the generic Dell motherboard simply doesn't like the RAM, nor does it feature dual channel support. Just like AMD motherboards don't support dual channel while Intel motherboards do.

Don't quote me on your setup, but I'm merely inferring that you should research that before making any conclusions.

Dark Assassin
 
Originally posted by Dark Assassin
Are you sure about that? As far as I know, Dell uses its own crappy RAMBUS modules instead of an intelligent DDR RAM setup. It's very possible that the generic Dell motherboard simply doesn't like the RAM, nor does it feature dual channel support. Just like AMD motherboards don't support dual channel while Intel motherboards do.
Click to expand...

Not to be an ass, but there are a lot of mistakes in your post.

Dells don't use RAMBUS RAM anymore. Rambus was only supported on the Intel i850 chipset and some current SiS motherboards, which Dell doesn't use. Plus, if he got Crucial to work with the system, you'd know his system doesn't use RAMBUS anyways cause the modules aren't teh same.

Dell motherboards are also specially made Intels, which are far from generic; they also support dual channel configs in the modern systems.

Some AMD mobos support dual channel. Those with the nForce2 chipset support dual channel (Athlon XPs), and AthlonFX motherboards support dual channel.

That said, to the original poster, I dunno. You should be able to use 4 DIMMS in dual channel.
 
Dark, your post is pretty ironic. As the above poster stated, yes my dell came with PC3200 DDR running in dual channel mode on an Intel i875P motherboard. I researched the specifications of the existing ram and made sure to purchase the same specced memory from Crucial. Yes, the ram is in the proper bank setup and yes, the bios is set to dual mode (it was running fine in dual before I introduced the new memory).

Anyone else have any ideas? I guess I'll give Crucial or Dell a phone call tomorrow.

Thanks again for your responses.
 
here's a sure-fire way to find out.

First, take out the "new" sticks of RAM, and use Sandra to benchmark your memory bandwidth. Write down the number.

Then, put in the new sticks and use Sandra again. If the difference between the numbers is not frickin' huge, you're still running dual channel.

I'm willing to bet that if the BIOS says you're running dual, you are.
 
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