Crucial DDR 2100 - how possible to run at 2700 or 400 ?

[John]

Yeah it sounds ridiculously optimistic but thats what I see at Newegg
consumer feedback. People claiming to run the 2100 DDR at those
speeds.

Now one thing - Ive got two sticks 2100 crucial I bought at Newegg but
I bought them about 8 months or a year or so ago. Perhaps the quality
was very different then - 2100 way worse than 2700 etc. Could it be
that now that mem firms have continually improved production
techniques that their 2100,2700 and 400 are actually fairly close in
quality terms? So that people who buy it now can but not the old
stuff? The prices also have converged so that there isnt the huge
gap between 2700 and 2100.

 

[kony]

Yeah it sounds ridiculously optimistic but thats what I see at Newegg
consumer feedback. People claiming to run the 2100 DDR at those
speeds.

Now one thing - Ive got two sticks 2100 crucial I bought at Newegg but
I bought them about 8 months or a year or so ago. Perhaps the quality
was very different then - 2100 way worse than 2700 etc. Could it be
that now that mem firms have continually improved production
techniques that their 2100,2700 and 400 are actually fairly close in
quality terms? So that people who buy it now can but not the old
stuff? The prices also have converged so that there isnt the huge
gap between 2700 and 2100.

It's true that current Crucial PC2100 can "usually" run at PC2700
speeds, but it isn't guaranteed to do so, which is your gamble.

You're correct that memory, like many other technologies, improve to
the extent that today's PC2100 is likely to be better than a year-old
module, given same manufacturer and chips, PCB construction, etc (all
other things being equal if that were possible).

I wouldn't expect PC2100 to run at PC3200 (400 as you wrote) speed,
some may but it's not something worthwhile to depend on. If you want
to risk your data integrity and feel confortable in your ability to
test and troubleshoot the memory, you're making the call as to whether
it's suitable for your application, system.

With any manufacturer there may be (the worst of the lot) parts that
only qualify for lowest speed binning, so even if almost all PC2100
memory can run at PC2700, it shouldn't be any surprise to find some
that can't.

If the data is valuable don't even second-guess the memory, buy
modules guaranteed to run at the needed speed and possibly even
declared compatible by the motherboard manufacturer, though the
"compatible" modules are usually those that existed prior to release
of the motherboard during it's testing phase, may or may not be what's
available by the time the end-user buys memory. In that case you're
at least putting the odds in your favor by buying modules specified
for operation at the intended speed.

In other words, YMMV, it's your risk to take.



Dave

 

[John]

In other words, YMMV, it's your risk to take.

Yeah I wanted some feedback from people with old crucial since I have
no idea if the old stuff can be OCed at all.

Im thinking of upgrading to a 2500 barton and it would save me $100 or
so if I didnt have to buy new mem.

I tried OCing my ancient Palomino 1700 which is known to be a dismal
overclocker and I ended up with lots of HD corruption which was hairy
since I have tons of stuff on two huge HDs Im trying to clean up right
now. Luckily only a few series of files were messed up.

Itll be a while before I clean up all the junk off my HDs so Id like
to have some idea if the old Crucial can hit 3200 at all.

 

[kony]

Yeah I wanted some feedback from people with old crucial since I have
no idea if the old stuff can be OCed at all.

Im thinking of upgrading to a 2500 barton and it would save me $100 or
so if I didnt have to buy new mem.

I tried OCing my ancient Palomino 1700 which is known to be a dismal
overclocker and I ended up with lots of HD corruption which was hairy
since I have tons of stuff on two huge HDs Im trying to clean up right
now. Luckily only a few series of files were messed up.

Was that from memory o'c or PCI overclock though? Usually the PCI o'c
corrupts the HDD, with memory errors the data "seems" fine until a
figure is off or a crash.

I had a Palomino XP`1600 that'd do 1.7GHz, though most of that was
from multiplier rise, the FSB stayed at 143MHz, only 36MHz PCI bus.
Much higher and the old Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 60 HDD attached had
problems, but contemporary WD and later model Maxtors didn't mind
higher PCI bus speed as much.

Itll be a while before I clean up all the junk off my HDs so Id like
to have some idea if the old Crucial can hit 3200 at all.

If it can't, just change the multiplier and run whatever speed you
can, keeping it nearer DDR333 FSB & memory to keep the PCI bus near
33MHz.

I had some rougly 1 yr old PC2100 crucial but never tried it higher
than 175Mhz... it ran that fine at 2.5,3,3,6 but the system it was in
was sold, never tried higher.


Dave

 

[John]

I had some rougly 1 yr old PC2100 crucial but never tried it higher
than 175Mhz... it ran that fine at 2.5,3,3,6 but the system it was in
was sold, never tried higher.

Im not sure but Im hoping not memory. It seemed to run fine but then
the system just seemed a little weird so I put it back and scan disk
found a lot of weirdness on the HD. Ive been having some weirdness
period from trojans and viruses and other problems too so its hard to
tell until I clean up my HD so I can test it thoroughly.

Though you dont really need alot of power to do alot of things - Id
like the 2500 , it makes a noticeable difference when
encoding/compressing/uncompressing things.

My ambitious goal is to try to upgrade to a 9700 Pro,9800 , Barton
2500 AND canon printer for $250 keeping my fingers crossed for
Thanksgiving and Xmas sales .