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The Unknow RAM - Kingston?

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stars1234

Registered
Joined
Aug 26, 2004
Location
Utah
I got a stick of Kingston 512 Value Ram, CL3 at CC about a month ago. It was on sale, and had a rebate. I've always used Crucial, but I bit on the rebate.

Today, I'm going to pick up another, since it's cheaper and they'll have to match their own price.

Problem: I don't know how to tell who made the chips on the module I have.
Is there a FAQ somewhere that will help identify?

All the chips are the same: (I assume remake?), they have a number on them: 32 and a small, open circle in the upper right corner. Everything else is blank--or sanded off. no timings, no nothing.

There are some nos. on the Kingstn sticker, but they don't have any meaning to me, except the 2.6v; and there is a code: AVMO16B0149 at the end of the sticker.

The retail brand is KVR400/512R, which doesn't match any of the Kingston labels.

I did a google search and came up with a PDF on the Kingston site, with the specs. Then, I looked at the only 512, PC3200 with a CL3 that they list on their site. The PDF is exactly the same. I emailed Kingston. The reply said it's the same RAM.
I asked about the maker of the chips but that got no reply.

Any ideas on how to find who made it? The RAM is going for $60, but if it's a Kingston, generic, where they won't even label the chips, I wonder if it's any good at all?

Opinions?
 
put the stick into ur comp and install an app like EVEREST to identify it
 
welcome to the forums. kvr uses just about every chip there is. so if they put their name on the blank ur not gonna know.(some leave the original chips names on them) the best way is to hit it with some volts and see how it performs.
 
Thank you. All good things to know and try.

I decided to return the Kingston 512, no-name to CC, give up the rebate and get a pair of Corsair 512's, CL2.5, from Newegg. When I figure tax and all that, plus the hassel of rebates, although CC isn't too bad, the price is only $10 > for a pair of Corsairs and that's worth the hassel.

Although these are not sold as Dual Channel mods, I suppose they might be from the same manufacturing run and work for DC? Or were they just thrown in a bin and put together later?

Today, I tried to buy the Corsair. It was a one-day sale at newegg. And wouldn't you know it, something went wrong, their server kicked me out during finalization and I missed the sale. The server put me in a loop, which took a hard boot to break out of, then gave me a http 1.1 service unavailable, then back to the loop, finally no login and then a HTTP 500 error. -- this took about 30 very frustrating minutes as the clocked ticked down, and expired. It really hasn't been my day.

I suppose I could tell newegg what happened and see if they'd let me still have the Corsair. --oh, is it worth it to spend an extra $10 or so for heat spreaders for each module? My new system is going in an Antec case, with a 100 mm fan in front and back, plus two fans in the PS. I won't be water cooling, but with so much air moving in the case and it being in a room that hardly ever gets higher than 72F, do I need the heat sinks?

Back to my story: Newegg now has on sale a pair of Mushkin DDR400, CL2.5; and also TwinMos, which are dual channel specific. These all seem to have similar specs as the Corsair I tried to get and are actually $10 less. Newegg also have a pair of Geil which seem very close in specs and that one, includes the heat spreader. But the reviews say don't expect to OC any of these.

Do I get Mushkin, fight for the Corsair or keep the Kingston no name? try TwinMos? I sure don't want to throw away $150. Any ideas on these memory module?

If I don't keep the Kingston, it has to go back by Thursday, else my 30 days for return are up---decisions, decisions--just wish I knew what to do.

I did a little OCing when destops first came out, taking an Intel 133 and getting it up to 166 mhz. That was hard. Now, we have it so much easier, but it's a forum like this that helps us all learn from each other. I'm glad I'm getting back into this. It's exciting. And with you folk helping, it's very nice to have new friends.

For this sytem I am builing, an Antec case & PS was my 1st buy. The PS is small, only 350 wts. That's all I could afford at that quality. But I was told, whether true or not I don't know, that a 350 Antec PS is like a 450 generic or even better.

After I get the memory, I will ty for the mobo and video--AGP over PCI.

I've always used Asus & Abit mobos--with exception of trying an ECS, which to my shigrin, it actually melted down this past summer. I saw that the temp. had risen to 40C, was a bit concerned but it seemed to have stabilized, only to come back an hour later because I smelled ozone and saw some smoke and the temp at >85C.

So when people say they "fried," something, or it's toast, this time it really is--the PCB is the color of toast and the CPU looked like it had been painted brown/black. So much for ECS.

Now, which mobo do I get? I'm leaning towards Abit. I don't need SATA right now, but I'm a big believer in RAID1, especially with the price of HDDs.

Do I bite the bullet, since I'm building a totally new system, not upgrading, and go with ill-afforded 64 or stay at 32, until the 64 is at 32 prices?

For most uses I think AMD is a better CPU choice/$ than Intel (although I worked for Intel). Intel has its glory when you need something that takes a lot of floating point calculations--graphics, animation, music, etc. But for all else it's AMD. Of course for the latter, it really takes a super MAC, but they are too expensive. And I can't make my own.

I love this forum. I'm learning so much.

The more I read though, the more I'm undecided as how to go. What would you do--64 AMD, 32 AMD or make an entire switch to Pentium? (I wouldn't touch a Celeron.)

And for my system RAM, do I now go for the Mushkin (never tried it before), try to get back the Corsair, or keep the Kingston, sanded off, no-name or try TwinMos which I am totally ignorant of and take my chances?

Again, what would you do?

This is great fun as we get to see what we can do. -- how far we can push things?

I can't believe that this, my back/backup system, an AMD 233, OCed to 234, with an ABIT TX5 mobo is still running. If I had better ram, I might be able to push it to 266 mhz. But what a work horse, to still be around after > 15 years. I sure am glad to have it.

If I had the money, I'd probably go for a 64 mobo--but still need help in gettin a OCing 64 mobo.

What I'm planning on is staying with 32, putting in an AMD mobile XP2500+ or XP2600+ and OC it as much as I can. Perhaps use a Shuttle mobo that's nVidia, but has almost all the stuff that makes nVidia good, disabled or the PCB traces, erased, or try an Nf7 or go up to an NF7-S?

Once I get this built and OCing away, it'd sure be nice to drop the whole thing in an acquarium full of Fluorinert that's running through a liquid nitrogen, heat exchanger.

Just think of the possibilities.

And when they come out with the new HDDs that have no moving parts but are crystal structures that respond to magnetic resonances, how fast can we go?

Little could I imagine, as I spent high-school Summers at NASA with the Apollo mission, how computers would change. We were style using transistors then.

With the exception of storage, we now have more computing power on the desktop than they had on an entire floor of mainframes. (at the cost of millions $.)

I wonder what a forum such as this is going to be like, when we need to learn to overclock a crystal lattice? I guess it'll be get out the ol' laser and microsope and change the physical structure of the crystal?

If anyone wants to help me more on the RAM decision, decide on a mobo, do I stay with 32 or switch to 64, which video cards to mix with probably an nVidia board, etc., all on a budget at $500-$600, I'd sure like more help.

Five hundred isn't much, but there was a time when I paid $500 for a 2 gig HDD and thought it was an incredible buy!

Keep pushing the boundaries guys and gals.

Thanks for the help.
 
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