[plug] For anyone following that RAM speed debate...

[Craig Foster]

For a laugh, check out ctspd from ct' Magazine. It views the SPD and
eeprom contents in a meaningful manner. (Purist Warning - it's a Win32
Program)

While browsing through you're el-cheapo and some expensive stuff, see how
many of them *fail* the SPD or eeprom CRC. Apple had so many problems with
this, that the latest EEPROM for "pretty" Macs will not boot at all with
memory that fails this simple check. Apple figured that the bulk of their
tech support and returns were from dodgey third party RAM. The fix was
stop the dodgey stuff from working at all... period!

There's a lot to be said for people publicly naming & shaming memory
companies that frequently produce technically *bad* RAM...

As for flashing them? You'd best look for the serious dough required from
SDRAM EEPROM flashers. Friend in the business "rebadges" memory by
reprogging the stick and putting his sticker over the top. Because the
EEPROM is done right, the memory and motherboard come to a better
understanding and the RAM performs better / is more stable. He wouldn't
tell me the cost, but he when asked $5K his reply was "And then??"

Regards,

Craig Foster

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Craig Ringer [mailto:craig at postnewspapers.com.au]
> Sent: Friday, 19 October 2001 5:33 PM
> To: plug at plug.linux.org.au
> Subject: Re: [plug] For anyone following that RAM speed debate...
>
> Burnt Damper wrote:
>
> >    1. The SPD setting in the EEPROM being supported by
> >       motherboard/CPU combination.
> Strictly, I'd say "motherboard not being brain-dead and
> requiring exact spec modules not over-spec"
>
> BTW how do you reprogram those EEPROM modules? I've got
> read only access
> via lm_sensors, but haven't the faintest how to flash them.
> I have a
> 128m chip with fuqd eeprom contents you see. I know its
> pc100 but the
> board I want to use it in won't let me override the SPID
> and tell it
> what speed the RAM is so its spitting the dummy with "bad
> memory module".
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