[ale] RAM upgrade question

[Courtney Thomas]

Thanks Calvin.

I think it'll work fine as I was just on www.memorysuppliers.com and 
they have memory for my specific machine that they guarantee to work and 
it's "CL3"   :-)

Cordially,
Courtney



Calvin Harrigan wrote:
> Courtney Thomas wrote:
> 
>>Maybe what I should have said is........
>>
>>Since the Cache Latency is not manually set in the BIOS but is reported 
>>as Level 2 Cache 512 KB,..... should I assume it's automatically 
>>detected and so I can use CL3 as well as CL2 ?
>>
>>OR, does it mean I can ONLY use CL2 ?
>>
>>Gratefully,
>>
>>Courtney
>>
>>
>>
>>JK wrote:
>>
>>>James P. Kinney III wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>On Sun, 2006-06-25 at 16:39 -0500, Courtney Thomas wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>I need to increase the RAM capacity from 128 to 512MB in a portable.
>>>>>
>>>>>I've located some SODIMMs, whatever that means,
>>>>>
>>>
>>>Small Outline Dual Inline Memory Module, IIRC. "SO"
>>>refers to the form factor.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>>that appear to match the 
>>>>>docs on my machine's RAM requirement, except that said modules are CL3, 
>>>>>not CL2.
>>>>>
>>>>>Of what significance is this ?
>>>>>  
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>If you are replacing CL2 with CL3, it should work OK as long as the rest
>>>>of the parameters match up. Don't mix the two types or else the RAM will
>>>>not work. The CLx is a timing designator. I can't recall whether it is
>>>>refresh rate or write rate. The main thing is that all the RAM must be
>>>>the same type.
>>>>
>>>
>>>And you may need to adjust your BIOS for the lower CL (cache
>>>latency) setting. Some BIOSes require CL to be set manually.
>>>Some allow different CL settings per bank, IIRC.
>>>
>>>-- JK
>>>
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>>>
>>
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> 
> 
> I'm pretty certain CL refers to the CAS Latency.  CAS = Column Address 
> Select(Strobe).  It's the latency from when a new column of memory cells 
> are addressed and valid data is appears on the data lines.   It has 
> nothing to do with cache.  It's basically how fast the memory is.  The 
> lower the number, better the memory performs.  Replacing 128M of cl2 
> with 512 cl3 will actually make memory access slightly slower overall, 
> but that amount of memory will need less swapping.  No matter how slow 
> the new memory it is still several orders of magnitude faster than swap 
> space.  So the overall system will definately be more responsive.
> 
> Calvin...
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