goofy RAM brands

[ratdude747]

as i prepare to recap my msi k7t-turbo, i was looking at my 3 p133 512mb sticks, and i found some odd brands:

1 stick is IBM stickered infineon, good...

1 stick is no name amazor, dated 06/24/02

1 stick is no name "F1" ram. has a upc and :pc133 512mb", thats all. pcb is
"hj" brand

[ratdude747]

Re: goofy RAM brands

oops! i forgot to add:

these brands sound ok or am i screwed?

[toastygoodness]

Re: goofy RAM brands

i'd say the infineon is fine, but honestly its pc133 i don't think people really wanted to screw over consumers yet. to be safe, run memtest for a while

[shadow]

Re: goofy RAM brands

If they work fine....who cares!

[Wizard]

Re: goofy RAM brands

correct, better yet prime95 torture test mode.

Cheers, Wizard

[gdement]

Re: goofy RAM brands

There's definitely some cheap crap PC133, just like anything else. And with the good stuff cheaply available nowadays on ebay, etc, there's not much reason for using anything else.

The junk memory turns up faulty more often than the good brands do. Even if it passes tests I wouldn't trust it long term. But if it's not an important machine then use your judgement.


Besides generally poor quality, one interesting "trick" with memory like that is sometimes it will have 16x 4-bit chips on it. An unbuffered module built with 4-bit chips isn't JEDEC legal because it requires 16 chips to be active at the same time. This puts too much load on the system (probably overstrains the chipset).
JEDEC specs don't allow that configuration unless it's buffered/registered.

4-bit chips are apparently cheaper, so the cut-rate brands will use them inappropriately.
If reputable brands need that many chips on an unbuffered module, they will always have 2 banks of 8-bit chips instead. (8 active at a time, the other 8 "asleep").

If a 16-chip module is pulling the 4-bit stunt, I think it will probably appear as only a single "row" in the POST screen (should be 2 rows). You can also identify the chips by looking up a datasheet on them.

[ratdude747]

Re: goofy RAM brands

going through my stash, i found 4 1gb ddr sricks in my emachine. i got them free, still in packaging.

but, they are apida brand.

bad?

i also have 4 512mb ddr sticks, corsair value brand.

[gdement]

Re: goofy RAM brands

Apida? or Elpida?

The latter is fine, never heard of the former.

[NxB]

Re: goofy RAM brands

Seriously, if it posts and passes prime 95 and/or memtest you are fine. No need to sweat about ram, especially if you aren't overclocking and have it already.

If buying ram, the reject chip and non jdec ram probably won't last for very long and won't give you much OC room. Might as well spend the extra few bucks.

[gdement]

Re: goofy RAM brands

If the board lets you, test it with the FSB overclocked about 3-5% (137-138MHz). That tells you whether it's on the edge of instability, or if it has a safe margin. This also compensates for the fact that stress tests aren't perfect.

If that passes then it's probably okay. I still wouldn't trust cheap memory in anything important, but for some things it might not be worth worrying about.

If it only barely passes at stock speed, and can't handle +3%, then it's not going to be reliable long term. As conditions change it will end up glitching on you later.