Question about Ram/Memory

[Rannith]

Didnt know where to turn but if anyone can help me with this question, it be awesome...

Anyhow my ram is listed at 1300 mhz  and when I go into the bios  there is no option to set it to 1300 mhz...

the options i get are like 1150 mhz 1450 mhz and so on...

its currently set to 1150 mhz

My main question is, would a higher frequency be a bad thing or should I just leave it like it is?

thanks 

 

[Andar]

using higher frequencies is known as overclocking in the computer business.

Basically all parts that are operating at higher speed will create more heat - if you can keep the temperature down with cooling, that overclocking will give you more speed. If you cannot keep the temperature down, then you run a risk of overheating and melting/damaging/burning parts of your computer.

Normally the RAM should be left on autodetect - current BIOS versions are rather good at detecting optimum settings for RAMs.

The additional problem with RAM (as compared to overclocking other parts) is that an overclocked RAM has a higher risk of returning wrong data from its cells - and then no one can tell what that wrong data might do to the currently running programs. Might be anything from a bluescreen over subtle data changes that invalidate backups to - nothing at all, if the checksums detect that change and prevent it from having effects.

A lot depends on the quality of your RAM - with good RAM, a minor overclocking should cause no problems, with bad RAMs even regular speed can cause failures.

EDIT: Almost forgot: depending on how your mainboard works, overclocking will not only overclock the RAM but also other parts of your computer, which may not be specified for that speed.

 

[AwesomeCool]

1300 mhz refers to the maximum number of clock cycles per second that the RAM can operate on.  The higher the mhz the better the speed, but it can cause overheating and the like.

I suggest leaving the Bios settings alone.  Due to the BIOS usually being good at determining optimal settings for RAM.

edit: dang ninjas D:

 

[markjacks]

Indeed. I think 130Mhz is the CPU clock. That one is called over clocking your CPU for optimum performance but I wouldn't touch that since the CPU itself is not designed to do that. 

 

[Gothic Lolita]

The things you can configure that way in the bios are safe.

It only get's critical, if you change the voltage or timings from your ram. 
The clock speed you can set on the highest amount with no issues, because these are save values.

If you go to the CPU and raise the Bus Speed, which increases the ram speed too, then your system can become unstable.

That could be the heat of RAM or that your ram simply doesn't support clocks beyond 1300 MHz.
At modern mainboard the ratio between CPU and RAM will be auto adjusted.

My RAM goes up to 1866 MHz. If I try to overclock it, while raising the Bus Speed, then my PC starts to crash under peak load.

Even I only try to get up ot 1900 MHz, which is not much. As long as you only change the RAM specific options you should be safe. (\s/)

 

[Andar]

The things you can configure that way in the bios are safe.


It only get's critical, if you change the voltage or timings from your ram. 


The clock speed you can set on the highest amount with no issues, because these are save values.

Wrong, it depends on the mainboard.


There are mainboard specifically designed to allow overclocking and bypassing safe values, and if you have one of those (they're usually more expensive and not in base configurations), then you can cause a lot of problems and defects by overclocking.


You see, those mainboards assume that you know what you're doing and use only components that are needed for that overclocking, like installing a water-based cooling system instead of the regular air based cooling. And the mainboard cannot see if you didn't do that, so when you set options designed to be used only with special cooling you can burn out components if you don't have that special cooling...

 

[Gothic Lolita]

Wrong, it depends on the mainboard.

There are mainboard specifically designed to allow overclocking and bypassing safe values, and if you have one of those (they're usually more expensive and not in base configurations), then you can cause a lot of problems and defects by overclocking.

That I didn't know, on my Asrock there is nothing above 1866 Mhz. I can go below, but not above.

Also I thought, as long as you don't raise voltage no real damage could been made.

Because you can allways BIOS reset, if you overclocked too much. If you overvolted too much, then you can destroy your hardware, that I know.

Could be because of overheating or overvolting damage. First mostly can be fixed, while waiting a few moments and then turn the power on to the system.

The second if happens you can mostly buy new hardware. :/

*off topic*

For example NVIDIA couldn't be overvolted beyond 1,15 Volt, which I use on my GPU. The clocks you need adjust with try and error, most of. But if you go way too high you see it because of graphic errors.

*on topic*

On RAM it's different, because Windows will allways run, without trouble. But if you start up a game, or complex programm, it will probably crash with error message x. :/

For my RAM I can't change a thing, if I go from 10-10-10-30 down to 9-9-9-27 it crashes. Same if I go to 11-11-11-33. So nothing to do there.

If I raise the clock from 1866 up to 1886, it crashes, if I play games or convert a video. Windows runs allways fine, as I said.

Even I was going up to 1,65 Voltage on the RAM with 2000 MHz, Windows run, games are running some, but videoconverting crashes. :/

I have no problem with too hot RAM, because they got heat shields. But sometimes it's not the RAM that causes the trouble, instead it could be the mainboard itself. -.-

Why does overclocking need to be that complex? -.-' (\s/)