RDRAM question :D

[Shiori]

Hi guys :D First post in a long time XD Decided to ask here since the techs here are the best online hehe XD

Anyway, I got me an old Dell Precision 340 for free from a friend, and I saw it used PC800 RDRAM. I remember I also had an old Fujitsu desktop somewhere, and I fished out the RDRAM from there. I thought I hit the jackpot when I saw it was using the same PC800 from the Dell, but when I installed it and booted it up it said it had incompatible RAM oO So I got out the sticks of RAM that I got from the Fujitsu computer and saw it was using 45ns RDRAM while the Dell was using 40ns. Is there any way I can use this kind of RAM on the Dell?

Thanks!

Oh, and one more thing (sorry if I seem to ask noobish questions, been a while since I involved myself in anything highly technical since I've been a banker 3 years ago XD): This Dell is using a Quadro4 that's AGP 4x, and I want to upgrade this to something a bit beefier; can I use an AGP 8x card with a mobo that I assume supports up to AGP 4x? Will it bottleneck on AGP4x or will the videocard be totally unusable?

[tuanming]

Hello Shiori, wow for someone who's is/was a banker that some pretty old pc ^^. Well, I dug up some infos and found an interesting info about RDRAM... To my surprise it is faster than DDR and beat it in all benchmarks! (RDRAM 800 vs DDR PC2700).

Anyway, have you try swapping out your old ram (45ns) with the 40ns and what is the total amount of megabyte for each ram? It could be that your motherboard isn't compatible with the 40ns one. So try swapping out the ram to test to see if it's a compatibility problem or not.

The agp 8x would work in a 4x slot only if it can also do 4x speed, aka back compatible. Basically, your video card will only work at 4x speed instead of 8x, and your card have to also support 4x inorder for it to work in a 4x slot.

If you have the money I'd say go with an Intel Core 2 system or AMD dual core if you're a bit short on cash, or don't want to spend too much on computer hardwares. These days, pc hardwares are pretty darn cheap, especially DDR2 ram :thumb:

Hopes that answers most of your questions XD.

[Shiori]

Well, what I did was to swap out the old 40ns RDRAM of the Dell with the 45ns RDRAM of the Fujitsu... lo and behold, it refused to boot, saying that I should use "40ns memory or faster". I guess 45ns sticks are slower... but what do I know anyway? XD Guess I'm stuck with 512MB RAM here.

As for the videocard, thanks for letting me know some of them can be backwards-compatible, I'll make sure I ask.

BTW, I'm doing this just for kicks, since it's been a while since I had time to tinker with computers lately (i use some nondescript IBM pc with built-in everything at/for work) , and I might as well mess with an old one just in case I seriously fck up :rotflmao:

One last question: Is there a working PS2 emu now? :rotflmao: j/k

[tuanming]

Was the 40ns functional in the first place? :p

[Shiori]

Yes it was, the Dell mobo simply refuses to take 45ns RAM.

I dunno, but maybe a BIOS update can solve this? Or is it really one of the quirks or RDRAM that doomed it?

[fried_egg]

i think price versus performance is what doomed it

[Leiw]

Shiori, I had an x1950 Pro that was compatible with AGP 4x so you should be pretty safe, no matter what card you buy. As fo RDRAM, you can always try eBay.

[Betamax]

Hey dude, how's it going in the big bad world of finance ;)

Anyways, I think you out of luck w/ that ram, I can't see their being a bios update for a slower chip. Besides, even if you got in installed there's a possibility you might actually find the performance gets worse (due to the slower latency).

[Shiori]

Hey I'm NOT a d00d oooookay DOKKTOR BETAMAX ;) :rotflmao: the plan will always live on in perpetuity :evil:

After brushing up on RDRAM technology over at Tom's Hardware it looks like the 133MHz Bus of the P4C 2.66GHz CPU that this beast has made it necessary for the mobo to use faster RAM by just 5 nanoseconds XD... damn now I have to actually SPEND actual currency on this thing oO :rotflmao: not only that, I also have to spend TIME looking for old RAM. I have an idea where to get some, although I don't know if they stock 40ns... will keep you posted.