DDR400 running at DDR333.

I'm wandering if anyone can help me out here with this small problem, My system just recently started reporting my PC3200 RAM running at 333 MHz (166) and my memory is supposed to be, and up until the other day was running at 400 MHz (200). Anybody have any idea what could possibly be going on? I have yet to run any test because I wanted to check if this is a simple problem that I'm just overlooking the answer to first. Thanks!

Remove one stick, and you will probably see that it will run at DDR400. It's unusual that you had it working before and it doesn't now. I usually experience it refusing to run at DDR400 with 2 modules right away, and not changing over time.

Go into the BIOS and set it to DDR400. Simple as that.

Sounds like the divider was changed. Sometimes(although it's rare), if there's some sort of issue like poor system stability, the ram will automatically become underclocked(assuming your bios supports automatic adjustment of the ram frequency and timings).

Check your processor speed. If that's lower, than the entire fsb has dropped for some reason. If it's just the ram, then the clock ratios were adjusted. either way, you can change it in the bios without a problem.

actually...I can't change it in the bios. I have already tried that. I mean, I can change it, but it doens't listen, my CPU fsb is uneffected and running at full speed, 200 MHz.

I have had these two sticks of 512 for a long time now, and it always used to run at 400. I did actually upgrade to a Beta bios, but I downgraded to a stable official release, but it still does this.

Know Nuttin said:

Remove one stick, and you will probably see that it will run at DDR400. It's unusual that you had it working before and it doesn't now. I usually experience it refusing to run at DDR400 with 2 modules right away, and not changing over time.

Click to expand...

I will try that anyway, although it actually always did run at 400...I dunno, I'll have to try it later though, I have to go right now. Thanks for the suggestion, I'll post back later when I try it.

sounds strange ...


maybe swap the sticks around an see.. can you adjust ram voltage too ?


test one stick at a time ..run memtest to check for errors ..

If the cpu is running at 200MHz and the ram at 333, then wouldn't it have to be a divider issue?

It would have to be...for the cpu to be at 200MHz while the ram is running at 333MHz (while using the 166 divider).

For some reason or another it reset the divider which begs the question of why? The BIOS change would seem like a likely culprit. I'll ask, just to go ahead and eliminate it from the equation...you did clear CMOS after reverting back to the official BIOS, right?

yeah .. i missed that part ...lol

double check your settings for divider after you reset cmos ...

if that doesnt work try testing with one stick etc...

Unfortunately I have no option for a divider in my BIOS. And the options were cleared when I flashed the bios, although I never actually cleared the CMOS via the jumper...so I guess I'll try that. And I haven't even tried taking out one stick yet, so I'm going to do that now. I'll be back in a few minutes to let you all know if anything worked. Thanks.

Ok, well I cleared the CMOS, but it didn't do anything. Then I started playing with the sticks of ram. The results were kind of odd.

One stick at a time gave me 200 MHz (400 effective)

One stick in DIMM slot 2 and one in DIMM slot 3 gave me 100 MHz (200 effective)

Any other combonation I could try with both sticks gave me 166 MHz (166 effective)

also, the CPU clock is effecting my memory speed because I set my CPU clock to 220 MHz, and now my memory is running at 183.3 MHz instead of 166 MHz.

This is really starting to p*** me off, because I know that it was running at 400 Mhz before. I'll run some memory test later, for now though, I'm going to take a break.

It is clearly a divider issue because whenever you use the 166 divider and the cpu is set to run at 220 HTT then the ram should be at 183, just like you indicated above in your last post and which I copied below.

"also, the CPU clock is effecting my memory speed because I set my CPU clock to 220 MHz, and now my memory is running at 183.3 MHz instead of 166 MHz"

The fact it runs 200 with a single stick but 166 with two sticks is interesting and would indicate that in BIOS, the divider is set for 1:1 (or 200) otherwise even when running one stick it would revert to the 166 divider. The question remains why is it doing it. Will either stick by itself run at 200 or have you only tested one or your two sticks individually? Check both if you haven't. If both sticks will run individually at 200, but not together, then the BIOS that you last "downgraded" to could very well be the reason.

It appears from your post that while the BIOS currently being this is an official BIOS it might not be the one that you were using prior to trying out the Beta BIOS. Either locate the one that you previously used and worked for you, or try another, reading throught the change logs, if available, to see if this issue is discussed in any of them.

I just got to believe that the BIOS change that you went through is most likely responsible for your current issues.

It's a bios issue. It does the same thing withe K8N with any bios older than 1006. If you look at the Asus forums you will see what I mean. Also, with the K8N the updated the memory charts from what is in the manual you may see now that 2 double sided DDR400 chip will only run at DDR333 and if you try 3 at a time it runs at DDR226 unless you switch to 2t then you can "maybe" get DDR333.

Wow, that's pretty stupid on ASUS's part . Oh well, thanks for the information. I'll have to try out all the BIOS's to see which is the latest one that works. Thanks again!

Reefa_Madness said:

Will either stick by itself run at 200 or have you only tested one or your two sticks individually?

Click to expand...

Almost forgot to answer that. They both will run at 200 when there is only one of the two in the board.

after downgrading two versions my memory is finally running at the speed it should be running at, however...now my dell monitors USB hub doesn't want to flipen work. So now I am, needless to say, very p****d off at ASUS. (sigh) I guess you just don't know if a product is good or not unless you try it yourself. I guess trial and error is the only way to really be sure of anything. Now I know never to buy an ASUS product again. Anyway, thanks for the help everyone, I now have faster memory.