New RAM with different CAS latency

[hansrijf]

Hello

yesterday I bought two sticks of 1 gb pc3200/400 memory.
In my system was 4x256MB PC3200/400 memory.

Now with the new 1 GB sticks and two 256 MB sticks the frequency is only 320 mhz.

So I took out the two 256 MB sticks and the memoryfrequency was 400 mhz again. Obviously the new sticks have a different CAS latency so the frequency is lowered to 320 mhz....

In my BIOS (motherboard Asus P4P800E-Deluxe) I can manually set the frequency to 400 mhz, but will this not damage the two 256 MB sticks?

I am running my PC now with these settings, and at boot-up is said that the memory runs at 400 mhz. What's the noticable speed difference anyway (using pc mainly for FS2004)?

 

[LeeJend]

The bios should have used the common 400 mhz frequency and set the CAS for the worst of all the sticks.

You can push RAM Freq or CAS with no risk of damage. Set it manually for what you want and run a burn in test to verify stability. If ithe machine will not boot or fails stabiltily reduce it one step and try again.

You do not want to run until you have completetd a stabilty check. There is some risk of data loss with unstable ram.

Memtest is the recommended burn in utility. It runs from self booting floppy or CD so you do not risk corrupting your HD while experimenting.

 

[hansrijf]

Thanks LeeJend,

Is there an option in a BIOS to set the CAS?