Re: Installing DIMMs, order of slots


cyg wrote:

There seems to be a common wisdom that one should always populate DIMM slots
starting with the lowest-numbered slot. However, I've never seen an
explanation as to why this is. I have reason to believe that my second slot
may be faulty, but I'm not sure if Memtest will be affected by the fact that
in order to isolate the issue, I can't have a DIMM running in the first slot.

Actually, I do know that Memtest reports the speed of the chip

Chip??? Don't you mean "module", that thing with all the memory chips
soldered on it?

differently depending on whether I put it in the first slot or the second slot.

The only mobos I've seen that required a DIMM in the first slot were
based on the Intel 810i chipset (815x may be the same). The slot
shouldn't matter, even though the timings for each slot vary a tiny
bit, but with marginal memory that could be enough to prevent proper
operation. So maybe you should go into the BIOS setup and override
the automatic memory timings and substitute the slowest timings
allowed, including for the memory bus speed. Then if the DIMM works
in your second memory slot, it means the slot is good but the memory
isn't. Actually if the DIMM works with less than 100% errors, the
slot is almost sure to be OK.

Lots of retail memory is marginal now because it's made with chips
that were either not fully tested (Kingston buys whole wafers, slices
and packages them in-house, and apparently tests them at lower
standards) or were rejected by the chip manufacturers (those chips are
euphemistically called "untested" -- UTT). Your best bet is to stick
with Crucial modules, which usually have Micron or Samsung chips on
them, or test very thoroughly on your own and keep going back to the
dealer until you get something that passes 100%. BTW, try to use more
than one test program because I've never had an error reported by
MemTest+ or Gold Memory 6.92 but lots reported by MemTest86 ver. 3.xx
(MemTest+ is based on MemTest86) and Gold Memory 5.07 And don't
accept memory that won't work perfectly at the BIOS automatic defaults.
.

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