RAM Timing
My roommate, with my help,
built a brand-new PC worthy
of mention in your maga-
zine; it has a Q6600, 4GB of
DDR2/1066, an ATI Radeon
4850 GPU, and a DFI P45-T2RS
motherboard. After installing
his student copy of Windows
Vista x64 and some of his
favorite programs, I advised
him to run CPU-Z to ensure
that the motherboard had
set everything correctly, as I
didn’t really want him to have
to dive into the BIOS unneces-
sarily. CPU-Z reported that
his RAM was cruising along at
DDR2/800.
He has a 1,066MHz front-
side bus, so the RAM timing
was unusual, especially since
the board is certified for
DDR2/1066. We checked the
BIOS and found that we can-
not set that frequency without
overclocking, which causes the
machine to become unstable.
We decided that the problem is
the BIOS and discovered that
DDR2/1066 is supported only in
the latest BIOS—but DFI’s BIOS
update utility doesn’t work with
Vista x64! Neither of us owns
a floppy drive anymore, so we
thought we might try booting
from a USB drive, but we can’t
find any Vista 64 capable tools
for creating that, either.
What should we do to
update the BIOS?
—Lyle GoodwinYou have several options. The
first is just to let it be. Your
friend will see minimal gains
(and possibly even losses in
some applications) by run-
ning the RAM at DDR2/1066
versus DDR2/800, so he can
avoid the headache and just
not fiddle with it. Remember,
motherboard vendors always
recommend that if the board’s
working fine, don’t mess
with it.
For most enthusiasts,
though, this situation is
an invitation to immedi-
ately update to the latest beta
BIOS. An alternative option
is to look at the BIOS screen
during boot. You should see
a prompt or option for some
kind of built-in updating tool.
Many current motherboards
let you update the BIOS
using a built-in flash utility.
Just store the updated BIOS
file on a USB key (the key
must be in before booting the
machine), boot the PC, start
the utility, and point it toward
the USB key. A third option
is to use Hewlett-Packard’s
free utility that lets you cre-
ate a bootable USB key. The
Doctor would provide a link,
but HP’s website seems to
shuffle the URL around on
a regular basis. Instead, go
to http://www.hp.com and search
for “cp006049.exe.” A final
option is to keep an $8 floppy
drive in your tool kit.Alien? Where?
I have an Alienware Area-
51 m7700 laptop computer
with 2GB of memory and an
Nvidia GeForce 6800 Go with
256MB GDDR memory. It’s
three years old and runs fine,
but I would like to upgrade
the graphics to get better
video response. I play World
of Warcraft and occasionally
have problems with the video
becoming a bit choppy. Plus,
with the economy in its cur-
rent poor state, I don’t really
want to buy a new computer
anytime soon, so upgrading
my current computer seems
like a good, relatively inex-pensive way to go. The prob-
lem is, when I talked to a tech
support person at Alienware,
I was told a video upgrade
isn’t available for my com-
puter because the current
videocards work with only
the current bus configura-
tions, not with my computer’s
bus. Is there truly no way to
upgrade my laptop’s video?
—Thomas OglesbyThe tech support guy is right,
Thomas. Each new mobile
GPU typically runs hotter
and requires more power
than the previous iterations,
and there’s no universal
laptop graphics hardware
spec. You’ve already got the
best videocard you can put
in your rig. You can increase
performance relatively inex-
pensively by upping yourThis month the Doctor tackles...
RAM Issues
Migrating RAIDMigrating RAID
RAM Issues
Migrating RAID
RAM Issues
Sticky Keys
Every notebook
manufacturer has
different graphics-
card specs; this
GeForce Go 6800
from an Alienware
m7700 fi ts in just a
handful of laptops.DOCTOR^
IBEROVING NOJR E8 EMEERIEN8E ONE STEE AT A TIBE62 |MAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUMMPPPCC| FEB 09 | http://www.maximumpc.com
To use 1,600MHz DDR3 like this in an EVGA 790i SLI
motherboard, you’ll need to step down the speed to
1,333MHz, at least initially
SUBMIT YOUR QUESTION Are flames shooting out of the back of your rig4 First,
grab a fire emtinguisher and douse the flames. Once the pyrotechnic display has
fiooled, email the doctor at doctor5mamimumpc.com for adkice on how to solke your
technological woes.