Can I use 800MHz RAM in a board rated at 667 MHz

[tom66]

Another thread on my DG965WH

The manual for my board has the following supported memory configurations:

• Four 240-pin DDR2 SDRAM Dual Inline Memory Module (DIMM) sockets
• Support for DDR2 800, DDR2 667, or DDR2 533 MHz DIMMs
• Support for up to 8 GB of system memory using DDR2 667 or DDR2 533 DIMMs
• Support for up to 4 GB of system memory using DDR2 800 DIMMs

I have quite a bit of spare DDR2 800MHz, and I'd like to put 8GB in the system. But from the look of it, I would only be able to use up to 4GB? If I put more than 4GB in, will the RAM be clocked down to 667 MHz? Or will it not work at all?

[Topcat]

Re: Can I use 800MHz RAM in a board rated at 667 MHz

it will work, it just won't run at its full speed.

[Pentium4]

Re: Can I use 800MHz RAM in a board rated at 667 MHz

Yeah it will probably just clock it down to 667MHz. Although there might be an option in the BIOS for you to select manual RAM speed, and you could just change it to 800

[goontron]

Re: Can I use 800MHz RAM in a board rated at 667 MHz

yes

[newtothis]

Re: Can I use 800MHz RAM in a board rated at 667 MHz

Yeah the other posters are right... now if you try to put 8gb in a 4gb supported board the system will only show and utilise 4gb of it

[shovenose]

Re: Can I use 800MHz RAM in a board rated at 667 MHz

should work just fine on desktop boards. Have had some issues with old ThinkPads using too fast memory, causing no POST.

[Uranium-235]

Re: Can I use 800MHz RAM in a board rated at 667 MHz

if it has SPI profiles and the board supports them, it might take the CL down too

[newtothis]

Re: Can I use 800MHz RAM in a board rated at 667 MHz

if it has SPI profiles and the board supports them, it might take the CL down too

Indeed, a lot of motherboards are not set to use low CAS Latency though unless they are built for overclocking, Yes it may be underclocking the RAM but same applies.

[lti]

Re: Can I use 800MHz RAM in a board rated at 667 MHz

I haven't seen any problems with RAM that was faster than the computer was designed for. All of the RAM manufacturers tell you that faster RAM won't work and you'll need to buy slower RAM (which almost always costs more, for some reason). Unless the board manufacturer did something stupid like trying to match the FSB to the RAM speed, it will work.

[Uranium-235]

Re: Can I use 800MHz RAM in a board rated at 667 MHz

this is the reason I put DDR3-1600 in ivy-bridge desktops. Its just about the same price (sometimes cheaper) than 1333, and most ivy-bridge motherboards will see the SPD profiles (GSkill is great for having SPD profiles). So if they have a Celeron or PDC ivb, it will run at 1333/7 and if they upgrade to i3 or above, it will be 1600/9 ready

[tom66]

Re: Can I use 800MHz RAM in a board rated at 667 MHz

Well, I got a decent deal on some 667 MHz anyway. £56 for 8GB in four 2GB sticks. PC works great and bios shows 667 MHz. But when I memtest86 it (passes fine) it shows it as 233 MHz. Why? Is it a bug?

Server build worked first time, I am using my broken 32 GB memory stick to run FreeNAS as it only requires the lower 2 GB or so.

[mariushm]

Re: Can I use 800MHz RAM in a board rated at 667 MHz

Bug in memtest, don't worry about it.

[Uranium-235]

Re: Can I use 800MHz RAM in a board rated at 667 MHz

was it memtest86 or memtest86+?

always use 86+

[tom66]

Re: Can I use 800MHz RAM in a board rated at 667 MHz

86+

[Pentium4]

Re: Can I use 800MHz RAM in a board rated at 667 MHz

What version? My favorite is 4.0a

[Uranium-235]

Re: Can I use 800MHz RAM in a board rated at 667 MHz

I pretty much try to stick with the latest, usually more accurate

[Pentium4]

Re: Can I use 800MHz RAM in a board rated at 667 MHz

For some reason I've had a lot more issues with 4.2 but it may have just been a bad disc

[larrymoencurly]

Re: Can I use 800MHz RAM in a board rated at 667 MHz

The only case where faster RAM didn't work for me was with an ECS mobo that supported PC2100 speed but wouldn't boot if PC3200 was installed AND the BIOS had been configured for the "safe" defaults instead of the regular defaults.

MemTest86 and MemTest86+ are supposed to use the same testing algorithms, but I've gotten different results with them, with MemTest86+ missing errors found by MemTest86. I also use Gold Memory because it did better than MemTest86 in RealWorldTech's evaluation of memory diagnostics, and sometimes it's found errors that the other tests missed. One person had no luck by running MemTest86/86+, but Gold Memory found the error in about 76 minutes but then needed another 9 hours to find that error again.