Can running under-spec damage RAM?

UberLord · Sep 17, 2002, 03:25 AM

After playing the UT2003 demo, looking at my benchmarks and looking at others, I've decided that it's time to replace my aging AMD 1.4 t/bird with something like an Intel 2.53 P4.

However, I've also discovered that one of my memory sticks (PC2100) has died on me, so I need to buy more of this stuff anyway.

I'm also looking at getting the ABit- BD7-II

However, both the chip and the board run @ FSB 133Mhz
Which is good - my current memory does as well.

What I want to know, is this. Can running PC2700 memory at PC2100 speeds damage the memory? I ask as I understand the P4 northwoods love clocking the FSB. But in case it don't like it can I still underclock the RAM so to speak?

Answers on a bottle of vodka to the usual address

merry · Sep 17, 2002, 05:02 AM

I've been using 133 sdram at 66 MHz for years (Celeron@500)

JavaFox · Sep 17, 2002, 06:53 PM

Nah. There's nothing wrong with underclocking.

Matth · Sep 18, 2002, 11:42 AM

Running PC133 at PC100 in mine

Wouldn't be quite so confident about DDR timings holding good though.

Gat a vague recollection that there is ONE oddity in the PC66 / PC100 / PC133 set...
PC133 seems happy at 100 - and also 66 - maybe PC100 doesn't run well at 66, since it dates from when PC100 was an expensive luxury.

PS. Just found and chucked some old magazines
£499 for 16 Mb of RAM
£300 for a CD-ROM drive, and similar prices for a modem

In hardware, we've never had it so good - but we need it, because in software, we've never had it so BAD.

Instead of great hardware driving software to incredible performance, we seem locked to a cycle of software that barely runs on anything more than a year or 2 old.