Mike Meyers’ CompTIA

A+® Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

RAM
Chapter 6

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to

Overview
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

• In this chapter, you will learn how to

– Identify the different types of DRAM packaging

– Explain the varieties of RAM

– Select and install RAM

– Perform basic RAM troubleshooting

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to

Program Execution
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

• Program code is copied from your hard

drive into RAM before it is executed

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to

Understanding DRAM
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

• Dynamic random access memory

(DRAM) is the most popular type of
electronic memory
– Special type of
semiconductor that
stores ones and zeroes
using microscopic capacitors
and transistors
– Single chip that can hold
millions of these
capacitor/transistor
combinations
– Limited width of 1, 4, 8+ bits

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to

Understanding DRAM
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

• Chips have historically been referenced

with respect to their depth and width

– 256 K × 1 = 256 Kb
– 1 M × 4 = 2 MB
– 64 M × 8 = 64 MB

• You can't tell the width of chip visually

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to

Organizing DRAM
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

• DRAM is considered the standard

– Low cost, high speed, and able to store data in a
relatively small package
– Many varieties of DRAM
• Early DRAM stored programs and data
in 8-bit (1-byte) chunks of memory

• Individual chips were only 1-bit wide

• Had to link 8 together to provide

1-byte code
© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to

Memory Controller Chip

Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

• The memory controller chip (MCC)

handles the flow of data from the
RAM to the CPU
• MCC takes care of the physical
access
• CPU doesn’t care if it’s one chip
or eight chips!

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to

DRAM Sticks
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

• Individual DRAM chips were

difficult to maintain
• An alternative was needed
– Put them on a stick

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs The RAM of Your Ancestors
Third Edition

• Early RAM types were called

Fast Page Mode (FPM) and
Extended Data Out (EDO)
– Speed measured in nanoseconds
– Example: 72-pin SIMM

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to

SDRAM
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

• Synchronous dynamic RAM (SDRAM) is

tied to the system clocks
– Synchronized with system clock
– Measured in MHz
– Comes on DIMM sticks
– SO-DIMMs for laptops

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to

SDRAM Speeds
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

Clock PC Speed Rating

Speed
66 MHz PC66
100 MHz PC100
133 MHz PC133

• PC speed rating = Clock speed

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to
Managing and DIMM
(Dual Inline Memory Module)
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

• This is the standard for SDRAM

• The 168-pin DIMM was very popular for
desktops
• 144-pin SO-DIMMs (small outline) are
used in laptops

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to

RDRAM
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

• RDRAM (Rambus DRAM) is a type of

RAM
– Speeds of up to 800 MHz
– Comes on sticks called RIMMs
– 184-pin for desktops and 160-pin SO-RIMM for
laptops
– Dual-channel architecture
– All slots must be populated: unused slots must
have a CRIMM (continuity RIMM)!

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to
Managing and DDR SDRAM
Double Data Rate
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

• DDR SDRAM doubles the throughput of

SDRAM
– 184-pin DIMM packages (desktops)
– 172-pin micro-DIMM and 200-pin SO-DIMM
packages (laptops)
– Wide range of speeds and naming conventions

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to

DDR Speeds
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

Clock DDR Speed PC Speed Rating

Speed Rating
100 MHz DDR200 PC1600
133 MHz DDR266 PC2100
166 MHz DDR333 PC2700
200 MHz DDR400 PC3200
217 MHz DDR433 PC3500
233 MHz DDR466 PC3700
250 MHz DDR500 PC4000
275 MHz DDR550 PC4400
300 MHz DDR600 PC4800

• PC speed rating =
Clock speed × 2 (i.e., doubled) × 8 (i.e., 64-bit data
bus)
© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to

Dual-Channel Architecture
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

• Uses two sticks of RAM together to

increase throughput
• Works only with paired RAM sticks

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs DDR2 SDRAM
Third Edition

• Doubled the clock, increasing buffering

• Does not speed up core RAM, but just
the I/O
• 240-pin DIMM (not compatible with
DDR)

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to

DDR2 Speeds
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

Clock DDR I/O DDR Speed PC Speed Rating

Speed Speed Rating

100 MHz 200 MHz DDR2-400 PC2-3200

133 MHz 266 MHz DDR2-533 PC2-4200
166 MHz 333 MHz DDR2-667 PC2-5300
200 MHz 400 MHz DDR2-800 PC2-6400
250 MHz 500 MHz DDR2-1000 PC2-8000

• PC speed rating =
Clock speed × 2 × 2 (i.e., doubled twice) × 8 (i.e., 64-
bit data bus)

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs DDR3
Third Edition

• Double the rate of DDR2

• 240-pin DIMM – not compatible with
DDR2 (as shown in the graphic)

DDR2 (top) and DDR3 (bottom) sticks

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs DDR3 Speeds
Third Edition

Clock DDR I/O DDR Speed PC Speed Rating

Speed Speed Rating

100 MHz 400 MHz DDR3-800 PC3-6400

133 MHz 533 MHz DDR3-1066 PC3-8500
166 MHz 667MHz DDR3-1333 PC3-10667
200 MHz 800 MHz DDR3-1600 PC3-12800

• PC speed rating =
Clock speed × 2 × 2 × 2 (i.e., doubled three times) × 8
(i.e., 64-bit data bus)

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs RAM Variations
Third Edition

• Double-sided sticks

• Latency

• Parity and error correction code

• Buffered/Registered

– Let's take a look at each one

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to

Double-Sided DIMMS
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

• Almost all sticks come as

single-sided or double-
sided
• Your motherboard may
or may not be able to
accept double-sided
sticks

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to

Latency
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

• Latency
– Measure of RAM response time
– Shown as CLx (x =2 - 9)
– Higher the number, the higher the latency
– Check motherboard manual for latency limits

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to

Parity and ECC

Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

• Parity is a rudimentary method of

checking the data to see if errors exist
– No error correction, just detection
• ECC (error correction code) is a special
type of RAM used by high-end systems
– Major advance in error checking on DRAM
– Can also correct many errors
– RAM sticks of any size can use the ECC DRAM, but
it is most common as 168-pin DIMMs
– A motherboard must be designed to use ECC to
take advantage of the ECC RAM

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to

Buffered/Registered DRAM
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

• Most motherboards support only four

sticks of RAM
– More than four sticks present challenges for
memory controllers
– To overcome these problems, buffering chips
are added
– Buffering chips as intermediary between RAM
and MCC

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to

Working with RAM

Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

• What’s wrong with this picture?

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to
Managing and Working with RAM
(continued)
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

• Avoid ESD damage

• Don’t touch pins or connectors directly

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to

Do You Need RAM?

Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

• Two symptoms point to needing more

RAM
– General system sluggishness, especially as more
programs are opened
– Disk thrashing or excessive hard drive accessing,
caused by excessive paging

Note: Disk thrashing can also be caused by disk

fragmentation

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to

System RAM Recommendations

Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

Operating Reasonable Solid Power User

System Minimum Performance
Windows 128 MB 256 MB 512 MB
2000
Windows XP 256 MB 1 GB 2 GB

Windows 2 GB 4 GB 8 GB
Vista

• Actual minimum requirements are much lower

– Usually leads to slower computer and unhappy user

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to
Managing and Determining Current RAM in
Windows XP
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

• My Computer
Properties
– WINDOWS KEY-
PAUSE/BREAK key
• Task Manager
– CTRL-SHIFT-ESC

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to
Managing and Determining Current RAM in
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition Windows Vista

• Same as XP
• Computer
Properties
– WINDOWS KEY-
PAUSE/BREAK key
• Task Manager
– CTRL-SHIFT-ESC

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to

Getting the Right RAM

Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

• Identify capacity
– What can the motherboard handle (look at the
manual)?
• Identify empty slots
– If all slots are filled, you’ll have to pull some out
– For example, pull out 256-MB sticks to add
512-MB sticks
• CPU-Z is a great tool to determine what
you have
– Also shows latency

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs Lab – Finding the Right RAM
Third Edition

• Upgrading RAM is the most common

hardware upgrade that people do—and
the easiest!

• You’ll need a motherboard manual and

access to the Internet to complete this
lab

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs Lab – RAM for the PC
Third Edition

1. Consult the motherboard manual to

determine type and amount of RAM the
system will support
2. Go to one or more of the following Web
sites to find the right RAM
– www.newegg.com
– www.tigerdirect.com
– www.frys.com
– www.bestbuy.com

• If you were going to upgrade the RAM,

who has the best price?

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to

Mix and Match at Your Peril

Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

• Mixing DRAM speeds can cause the

system to lock up, leading to data
corruption

• You can use faster DRAM than the

motherboard recommends, but you won’t
see an increase in performance

• You can put different speeds of DRAM in

different banks as long as they are both
faster than the speed specified

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to

Installing DIMMs
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

• Swing the side tabs away from upright

• Push the DIMM down somewhat hard…

the two tabs should move back into
place

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs Installing RAM Checklist
Third Edition

• Get the proper RAM

• Handle on edges only
• Don’t touch contacts
• Power down the PC and unplug it
• Flip latches open
• Align RAM groove with slot
• Insert RAM straight into slot

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs Inserting a DIMM
Third Edition

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs Lab – Your Turn (Installing RAM)
Third Edition

1. On your 5. Remove RAM

motherboard, remove
and install the RAM 6. Handle edges only
– The act of removing
and putting back the
RAM is called re-seating 7. Don’t touch contacts
the RAM
8. Align RAM groove
2. Unplug the PC with slot

3. Take appropriate ESD 9. Insert RAM straight

precautions into slot

4. Flip latches open

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to

Serial Presence Detect

Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

• Serial presence detect (SPD)

– Reports the size, speed, data width, and voltage of
the installed RAM
– MCC knows what to do
– CPU-Z shows SPD data

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs The RAM Count
Third Edition

• Shows at boot
• Counts addressable RAM and reports it
• Remember the subtle differences between
counting in binary and decimal--
512 MB does not equal 512 million exactly

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to
Managing and Installing SO-DIMMs
in Laptops
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

• Make sure the system

is off
– No AC connection
– Remove all batteries
• Remove the panel or
lift the keyboard
• Slide the pins into
position and then
snap the SO-DIMM
down into the
retaining clips

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to

Memory Errors
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

• Appear as
– Parity errors, ECC error messages, system lockups,
page faults, and BSoD
• Real memory errors
– “Parity error at xxxxx”
– If xxxxx is consistently the same, you have a bad
RAM stick.
• Phantom errors
– Random memory addresses
– Due to power issues, dust, and heat
• Page fault

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs Non-Maskable Interrupt
Third Edition

• Blue Screen of Death (BSoD)

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to

Testing RAM
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

• Hardware RAM testing devices can be

used to troubleshoot errors

• Memtest86 is a freeware tool that can be

used to test RAM

• Vista comes with a memory testing

utility on the install disc

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Mike Meyers’ CompTIA
A+® Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Third Edition

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved