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Why is my ram running at 1066MHz instead of 1600MHz?
I recently upgraded the ram on my Inspiron 660s, and in the process I discovered that it is running at a much lower speed than the specs (downloads.dell.com/.../inspiron-660s_reference guide_en-us.pdf) say it can.
The old ram is 1x4GB PC3 1600MHz, and the new ram is 2x4GB PC3 1600MHz, but the bios insists they are both 1066. I noticed that the bios is very old, so I downloaded and flashed the latest one; no change.
It works fine the way it is, but when the system advertises something it can't actually do, I want to know why.
ejn63
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February 12th, 2017 04:00
The RAM speed is determined by the memory controller, which on the CPU in your system is aboard the CPU.
What model CPU do you have (i.e., Intel 2350, etc.).? The base model of these shipped with a Pentium G630 CPU, which has a maximum memory speed of 1066 MHz. Unless you bought a higher-end model or upgraded the CPU later, 1066 is all you can get from this system.
https://ark.intel.com/products/53483/Intel-Pentium-Processor-G630-3M-Cache-2_70-GHz
Dan-H
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February 12th, 2017 12:00
what tool are you using to determine memory speed?
I suggest HWiNFO64 or CPU-Z.
Remember double the frequency to get the speed because it is dual data rate memory.
kstathem
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February 12th, 2017 14:00
so it cannot actually function as advertised without a hardware upgrade. thank you for the clarification. i was reading about subtimings last night, that will be something interesting to look at.
speedstep
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February 13th, 2017 05:00
1600MHz (PC3-12800) requires 1333mhz frontside bus and memory controller.
If your cpu is 2.0 2.2 2.4 Ghz it has the 1066mhz frontside bus.
If its 2.66 or 3.33 or 3.43 ghz then it uses the 1333mhz frontside bus.
The Intel® Core™ i3-5xx/i3-21xx Processors support
1066/1333 MHz DDR3 memory
The Intel® Core™ i3-32xx/i3-4xxx Processors support
1333/1600 MHz DDR3 memory
Intel® Core™ i7-9xx Processors support three channels of DDR3 memory at 800/1066 MHz
Intel® Core™ i7-8xx/i7-2xxx Processors support two channels of DDR3 memory at 1066/1333 MHz
Intel® Core™ i7-37xx/i7-47xx Processors support two channels of DDR3 memory at 1333/1600 MHz
Intel® Core™ i7-3820/i7-3930K Processors support four channels of DDR3 memory at 1066/1333/1600 MHz
Intel® Core™ i7-47xx / i7-5775C Processors support two channels of DDR3 / DDR3L memory at 1333/1600 MHz