RAM go slow...?

[peterev33]

Hi all,

I am trying not get too caught up in the WEI 'thing' but...

I installed a new Intel 120gb SSD at the weekend, straight foward install, no hitches. I also installed W7 x64 Ultimate on this drive and before putting my 1tb hdd back in for data storage and non-critical progs, I ran WEI. The primary hard disk performance showed a nice increase from the usual 5.9 to 7.5 but bizarrely the memory RAM figure went from 7.1 to 5.9.

I realise that WEI is not perhaps the best test out there but I've always found it to be consistent and the drop in reported performance is significant.

Any ideas please?

Thanks.

Peter.

Edit: I should have said that the previous WEI was run under W7 32 bit.

Edit 2: I should also have said that I did a BIOS update on the mb at the same time, Foxconn G31MX..

 

[Nibiru2012]

Since you did a BIOS firmware update for the motherboard, it would be a good idea to check an make sure the RAM timings and voltage are correctly set for the RAM you're using.

When a BIOS update is done, the BIOS defaults back to factory settings. So double-check everything in BIOS and set them back to where they were prior to the update.

 

[Ian]

Welcome to the forums Peter

Yep, I'm with nibs on this one - check the RAM timings in the BIOS just to make sure they are as they should be (if you have performance memory).

To be honest, I wouldn't worry too much about WEI scores as it's not the best benchmarking tool. SiSoft Sandra is probably a better benchmarking tool, and there's a free home version : http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/

 

[Nibiru2012]

Peter - Welcome to forums! I forgot earlier... my bad!

I agree with Ian also on the Window WEI score... it's an arbitrary thing. Don't get too hung up over it.

Use the program he mentioned or Everest is good also.

Everest Home Edition - a freeware system information, system diagnostics and benchmarking solution

Download: Everest Home Edition 2.20:

 

[peterev33]

Thanks guys, much appreciated..

I had a look in the BIOS and in the dram settings, it was set to SPD but as my memory is DDR2 400mhz, the lowest manual setting is 533mhz so I presume that SPD is the best setting..

I've attached a snapshot of my system, does anything look out of place?

I think I'll try reinstalling the older BIOS to see if that has any effect.

I am trying hard not be influenced by WEI but as the drop was so marked, it's hard to ignore it..

I just ran Sandra and I've seen this before, despite having 4gb of memory, it's only reporting 3.25gb...? Is that because of sharing?

Thanks again.

Peter.

 

[peterev33]

Hmm, seems I was wrong about the memory speed, see Sandra report attached.

CPU-Z is reporting that it's only running at 400mhz so I tried changing the BIOS to 800mhz and no change, CPU-Z still shows it at 400mhz?

 

[Nibiru2012]

PC-6400 RAM is actually supposed to run at 800MHz. Set your DIMM frequency to 400MHz and the DDR2 will multiply it to 800MHz.

The highest frequency for your RAM that your motherboard will support is 800MHz.

Double-check your motherboard manual. Download it here if you don't have it: http://www.foxconnchannel.com/support/downloads_detail.aspx?ID=en-us0001880

 

[peterev33]

Sorry, yes I did discover that after posting, I should have posted again.

Thanks for the link to the mb manual, I'll run through that this evening.