Dell notebook memory

[Andrew Pratt]

FYI I just returned from Office Depot with a 512 meg stick of PC2100 SODIMM memory for $216 cdn (tax incl) which is pretty cheap and they're local which saves on shipping and makes returns easier (14 days) I installed mine in the packing lot to make sure it worked properly and I happened to get a PC133 stick the first time so I know first hand their return policy is good ops: Anyway thought since there's been a flurry of people buying notebooks lately this might be of interest to some.

[Bing Fung]

That is a good price for the 512 stick, however I do want the CAS 2 rated memory. Still, good find Andrew!




Bing

[Andrew Pratt]

Bing why go for CAS 2 if the BIOS won't let you run it at that speed? or is there something different about the 8500?

[Bing Fung]

Andrew, the 8500 came with a 256Mb CAS 2 Nanya RAM. It may have been running at CAS 2 until I inserted the CAS 2.5 Crucial stuff. The memory always slows down to the slowest RAM timings. Now the performance hit probably is not enough to get a persons panties in a bunch, however if the 8500 is spec'ed with CAS 2 from the factory, I would like to maintian that just incase.. We pay a lot (I know I sure did ) for top performance.. May as well try to maintain it in the components we add on. Especially when it comes to memory. Memory is just too critical and can cause a lot of problems and instability. So far I have had 3 random BSOD's and a couple of lockups, that have me questioning the memory... So suffice to say, I'm glad I only bought the $60 stick of RAM for now. As I said, had I known Dell was using CAS 2 and Crucial was CAS 2.5, I would have purchased the extra from Dell. A CAS 2 SODIMM is rarer than 63 split window coupe, and I may have to just go with the CAS 2.5

Trev, what CAS did they give you with the 512 Stick in your 8500?




Bing

[Andrew Pratt]

Bing thats interesting that the 8500 comes with CAS2. Apparently the chipsets on the 5100 support CAS2 as well but the BIOS does not so at this point there's nothing to gain for me...how much of an improvement would you notice b/t 2 and 2.5?

[Bing Fung]

Andrew, the performance boost between CAS 2 / 2.5 is probably very slight, and person would get a bigger performance boost by uping the RAM from 256 to 512Mb.

Still if the 8500 is set to CAS 2 by default, then slower RAM that is not rated to CAS 2 performance may cause instabilities.

At this point I can't tell if the 8500 is running at CAS 2 as the BIOS is very generic.

How did you see what your CAS latency is set to in the 5100?

One thing I'm going to do is run 3D marks with the slower RAM removed. I seem to be getting about 400 Points lower than other 2.4Ghz 8500's. 3D marks is dependent on memory bandwidth, so a slower timing will affect the perfomace grade.




Bing

[Jeff Kowerchuk]

Interesting Bing. I assume you haven't found a source for CAS2 SODIMMs? I'll have to keep an eye on this. One thing I will definitely want to do is up my RAM.

[Andrew Pratt]

How did you see what your CAS latency is set to in the 5100?

There was a thread on Dell's forums about the memory timings.

[Bing Fung]

Trev just told me his 8500 came with CAS 2.5 Samsung. It probably in all likelyhood that the 8500 runs at CAS 2.5 or CAS 3. The thing that has me puzzled is why would Dell ship my 8500 with such rare and expensive CAS 2 RAM? Ah-well, too bad I didn't have 512 worth of that stuff.




Bing

[Andrew Pratt]

Bing mine shipped with cheap Samsung Ram so I guess its the luck of the draw...glad I didn't pony up the $$ for samsung ram :roll:

[Jeff Kowerchuk]

Actually Samsung memory is considered quite good. People are always clamouring up for it if they are looking for a reliable system. I remember when the first PC1066 RAMBUS chips were coming out, the wait for Samsung product seemed torturous.

I have no idea how good they are for overclocking, but in general they are considered very good quality. I'll probably be putting Samsung in my 8500.

[Bing Fung]

Yes, Samsung maybe "$Cheap" RAM, but it's not Cheap RAM if you get what I mean :LOL: It happens to be the prefered memory for the fastest graphics card makers.. ATI and Nvidia's top line cards all use the ultra fast 2.8ns Samsung RAM.

I have 2x512 sticks of PC2700 Samsung in my Asus and am considering 2x512 sticks of PC3200 Samsung for the A7N8X. When I bought my Samsung stuff I had read a few tests that show that the PC2700 Samsung actually outperformed a lot of the top makers in the PC2700 catagory. It beat out Crucial, Infinion, Kingston... And was able to clock to somewhere around 212Mhz FSB.

Just ran 3D marks with just the CAS 2 stick and got 9150. With both sticks I get 9013.

Added: What the hell do I know....? I just reinserted the extra RAM and ran 3Dmarks again. This time I got 9163....

So maybe it doesn't matter cause the CL is set slower than 2 :huh:

I guess a pure memory benchmark may show something, but I suspect it doesn;t mount to a whole lot. Maybe I'll load Sisoft Sandra and see...




Bing

[Trevor Schell]

Bing,,Funny that you had some lock-ups.
No problems here at all.
Except Nortons buggered me up, although it is fixed now.

Installed my 512 MB Crucial memory and everything works great.
I am going to have to run 3d Marks to see if I get any improvements.

I wouldn't call the Samsung Memroy cheap..
According to my invoice, I was charged $850 for that 512MB Stick..:E
That's highway robbery!! :twisted:




Trevor
My HomeTheater S.E.
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[Trevor Schell]

Just ran 3D Mark again for a score of 8936
My previous score with 512MB was 8840

You guys experienceing screen burn,,I am ,,I can see the task bar, when I shut down the Notebook.




Trevor
My HomeTheater S.E.
Sonically Enhanced
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[Bing Fung]

Screen Burn? 8O 8O 8O <--- That's me Jeff and Andrew

Humm, I don't notice anything on my display (yet)

The locks ups were kinda weird as I wasn't doing anything irregular. It seems pretty solid, and I was able to play for hours on Ghost recon with out any problems. Maybe it's just teething?




Bing

[Andrew Pratt]

I've been working with my notebook at work crunching some rather large databases so i've had the processor maxed out at 100 percent for an hour an a time only to click a few buttons and have it crunch some more numbers and I've yet to see a single error with it. I have to admit though that the memory wasn't ever maxed out but its likely still a pretty good stress test for the machine and its passed with flying colours.

Trevor you can't get burn in with an LCD monitor...just isnt' possible. You're likely just seeing the little pixels still somewhat on when you shut down or the screen saver turns off etc...it won't last long so don't worry about it

[Kevin P]

Trevor you can't get burn in with an LCD monitor...just isnt' possible. You're likely just seeing the little pixels still somewhat on when you shut down or the screen saver turns off etc...it won't last long so don't worry about it

Pr@'s right, it's probably just an after image that is left on the display when it powers down, until the crystals re-align themselves. Or maybe the backlight shuts off before the LCD, giving the illusion of a "burned" image for a second or two. Sometimes I see that on my notebook when it shuts down. It's nothing to worry about.

BTW, what does CAS mean on memory? Something to do with speed? First they had nanosecond access speed, then MHz speed, now CAS? Confusing...

KJP




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[Bing Fung]

Agreed, what Trev is seeing is residule imaging.

Kevin CAS stands for Colum Access Strobe, but its used as a term to describe a ratio (or value) of colum access time and clock cycles. CAS is used in the context of CAS Latency, the lower the number (latency time) the faster the memory can be accessed.

Here is what I found on the net.

CL >= tCAC / tCLK

Where:
CL is CAS Latency.
tCAC is Column Access Time.
tCLK is Length of Clock Cycle

If the tCAC is 20 nanoseconds and the tCLK is 10 ns. (100 Mhz. bus), then the CL is 2. However, if tCAC is 25 ns, then CL is 3, 25/10 = 2.5. however it's rounded up to the next whole number.

Most Systems are ran at CAS 2.5 or 3. However the newest MB's support CAS 2. Currently my Asus has CAS 2.5 rated RAM, however I'm running the Sytem at CAS 2.

Your memory has to be very good to run at CAS 2 with out memory errors, BSOD's or random lockups, for that is very fast memory timings.

The performance benefit on paper (theoretical) is probably larger than what it actually works out to in realworld application. A system would benefit more from increased RAM rather than the same size of RAM but with lower latency times

Still, we (I ops: ) like the specs. Must be the technoweenie in me.

When my Dell was locking up it was not doing anything of value or of importance. Running the game Ghost Recon pretty much stressed the CPU and memory so I'm not sure what it was. It has been solid of late, so it may have been some of the pre Windows updates :huh:




Bing

[Trevor Schell]

Well said Bing!
I was going to explain it the same way to Kevin,
but you did just fine!.
So now I don't need to!

Good Job!:T




Trevor
My HomeTheater S.E.
Sonically Enhanced
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