Re: [dmidecode] dmidecode and RAM speed limit

[Jean Delvare]

Hi Mark,

On Mon, 2 Mar 2009 13:56:48 +0200, Mark Ryden wrote:
>   I have DDR2 Ram of 667 MHz. I want to upgrade it to a higher speed DDR2.
> If I remember correctly, when I bought the machine it was written on some note
> that the max speed for DDR2 ram on this machine is 800 MHz , but I am not sure
> and I cannot find the note.
> 
> I see that there is DDR2 with 667  MHz, 800  MHz and 1066 MHz in stores.
> Is there a way to know what is the highest RAM speed for my motherboard?
> I tried to find this info from dmidecode and from
> decode-dimms of i2c-tools  and could not.

decode-dimms reads timing information from the memory modules but it
has no clue about the memory controller capabilities.

In theory dmidecode could help, however in practice the memory module
speeds supported by the controller are almost always improperly
reported. So I wouldn't trust dmidecode for this task.

What are your motherboard's manufacturer and model name? Your best
chance IMHO is to look for technical documentation on the
manufacturer's website. Most motherboard manuals include information
about the supported memory module speeds.

Alternatively, if you have a spare higher speed module at hand or can
borrow one for a short period of time, you could just try to stick that
one module alone in the machine and see at which speed the BIOS says it
will run it. This should tell you right away if your system supports
that speed or not.

-- 
Jean Delvare
http://khali.linux-fr.org/wishlist.html