Member Avatar for whftherb

Hello - first post on this nice forum. Actually my second, I've been to the introductory hall.

I work with a lot of older PCs, repairing and fixing them up with spare parts so that they can be used by people (our clients) who can't afford the latest Core-Duo. Typically, the donated machines are of the "low RAM" variety. Today, I've just been handed about two dozen or so RAM modules from a donor. They all look to be different to the eye. But he says he doesn't have any idea if they're still alive, or what capacity or specs these are. Neither do I from just looking at the chipsets. So I'd like to be able identify these and try and match them to some of my "projects". Where to start... I've Googled and found very little in terms of resources.

I had someone tell me once, to take an old motherboard and insert a module, boot into the BIOS and the BIOS should be able to tell you the capacity. Maybe so, but I'm sure it can't be that simple given the various RAM speeds, voltage requirements and timings that are out there versus bus speeds, voltage requirements and timings on all motherboards including the so-called "test" motherboard.

When faced with this issue, what do you experts do to try and identify a stick of RAM? Can you get me started because I hate to toss these out when they might be of use.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by manzo_banzo
Member Avatar for caperjack

Hello , I usually use a test computer for ram with no ident marks on them .and i use a working computer with windows installed and i use a great little program called ,CPU-z,it will show cpu/motherboard /ram http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php
google will show pictures of the different ram .PC100/133 sdram look the same
http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.upgradecomputermemory.com/images/products/large/64MB-168pin-Major-INF-B.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.upgradecomputermemory.com/ram.cfm//memorytypes/PC133-SDRAM-Memory/PC133-SDRAM-Desktop--Server-Memory/64MB-PC133-SDRAM-Memory.html&h=300&w=300&sz=22&hl=en&start=2&um=1&usg=__QrMuvzV-WyoJ7808QFK4iywYiwM=&tbnid=tyOPCyrZEzIAwM:&tbnh=116&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpc133%2Bsdram%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN
ddr sdram comes in many different speed like ,older to newer. in order
pc1600/1700/2100/2700/3200/
and then somewhere around there it goes to ddr2,then ddr3 biggest difference in the ddr and ddr2 is the different space between the slots /more pins
The biggest difference in sdram and ddr sdram is the 2 slots in sdram and 1 slot ddr sdram

http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.miamics.com/assets/images/ddr-ram.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.miamics.com/DDR-PC-3200-400MHz_p_0-78.html&h=300&w=300&sz=14&hl=en&start=2&um=1&usg=__6z6Un53uUllroX8VmGg8FtO-dTI=&tbnid=zj1q1RdIgoAwIM:&tbnh=116&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dddr%2Bram%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN

commented: Nice +3
Member Avatar for manzo_banzo

Just a short note - you won't be able to install it into the motherboard, if it's not supposed to work with that particular motherboard. So basically, if you can fit it in, you can check the capacity as well. Otherwise, as caperjack wrote earlier, just try finding pictures of all possible types of RAM, and I'm sure you'll be able to identify them all. Good luck

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