memory timings question 1

[wooglin]

Picked up some new(used) ram today: 2 x 512meg sticks KHX2700K2/1G Kingston HyperX

Installed, set my bios for DDR333 timing, 2.7V, 2-2-2-5 timings which is what the Kingston spec sheet reads.

Boot = not

2nd boot, went normally, went back to double check the bios, and it had reset to auto timings (2-2-3-8)

After another couple of tries to verify, I tried manually setting the timings to 2-2-2-6, which did the trick. ran mem test, and prime95, both went for an hour until I stopped them, no errors.

This is on an ASUS P4R800V-Delux mobo, with a Celeron 2.66 (566FSB)

Any simple reason why it will work at 2-2-2-6 and not the spec 2-2-2-5?

 

[mainegeek]

The latency of 2-2-2-5 is probably the specs if only one module is installed. Try just one and it will probably auto set at that spec.
I would leave it at auto 2-2-3-8 if paired.

 

[wooglin]

A friend suggested that I bump the voltage up a bit, then see if the 2-2-2-5 works. Sound alright?

 

[mainegeek]

And this friend is ready to pay for replacement memory???

 

[bcastner]

Star for mainegeek.
Please, your system is telling you what the limits of overclocking with two SIMs are.
Trust it.

 

[wooglin]

All due respect, I recall reading an article on Tomshardware a while back regarding the inability of most motherboards to accurately read the speeds off the memory properly, and so default to a slower speed.

Would it be considered overclocking if I'm just trying to run the memory at it's spec'd speed? I'm not overclocking anything.

If I open CPU-Z in windows and check the memory specs, it shows both sticks as 2-2-2-5, exactly what the Kingston spec sheets say.

As I said earlier, at stock (auto) voltages, the memory runs solid at 2-2-2-6 (passes all stress tests with flying colours). I'm just looking for some reasoning for why the 2-2-2-5 spec'd timings will not work. Running with 1x512 or 2x512 makes no difference.