CH07

Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+®
Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Fourth Edition
RAM
Chapter 7
© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs Overview
Fourth 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

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs Program Execution
Fourth Edition
• Program code is copied from your hard

drive into RAM before it is executed
Figure 1: Mass storage holds programs, but programs need to run in RAM.

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs Understanding DRAM
Fourth Edition
• Special semiconductor that temporarily

stores ones and zeros in microscopic
capacitors and transistors
– Refers to byte-wide memory
– Visualize like a spreadsheet:
– A 1 MB X 8 RAM stick would be represented as 8
columns wide (8 bits = 1 byte) and 1,048,576 rows
deep (1 MB)

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs Organizing DRAM
Fourth Edition
• Intel processors since the 8088 require

chips to be stored in 8-bit (1-byte)
chunks
• Older chips were stored in single bits
requiring eight chips to make a byte
• Not easy to determine actual width or
capacity based on what’s written on
chips
Figure 2: What do these numbers mean?

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs Organizing DRAM (continued)
Fourth Edition
• CPU accesses memory via MCC
Figure 3: The MCC accessing data on RAM soldered onto the motherboard

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs Practical DRAM
Fourth Edition
• Early RAM on the 8088 used an 8-bit-

wide data bus
• Some commands required two bytes.
– The codebook (instruction set) allowed this. The
CPU would recognize commands that were two
bytes wide and simply read both commands.
Figure 4: Codebook again

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs Practical DRAM (continued)
Fourth Edition
• 8086 chip could have used a 16-bit data bus,

but Intel made a marketing decision to use
the cheaper and easier-to-implement 8088.
• Using the 8086 would have meant inventing a
pumped-up MCC!
Figure 5: Pumped-up 8086 MCC at work

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs DRAM Sticks
Fourth Edition
• 80386 required a 32-bit-wide data bus

(8088 was only 8 bits wide)
– If chips were still only 1 bit wide, this would have
required a minimum of 32 chips on the board.
• DRAM manufacturers began creating
wider chips ×4 (4 bits wide), ×8 (8 bits
wide), etc.

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs DRAM Sticks (continued)
Fourth Edition
Figure 6: That’s a lot of real estate used by RAM chips!

Guide to
Managing and
Fourth Edition
• Single inline memory modules (SIMM)

came in 30-pin and then 72-pin
modules
– SIMMs inserted into special SIMM sockets
Figure 7: A 72-pin SIMM

Guide to
Managing and
Fourth Edition
• Current RAM is 32 bits wide, 64 bits

wide, and sometimes 128 bits wide.
• The width of the frontside bus is
dictated by the MCC being used.
Figure 8: The MCC knows the real location of the DRAM.

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs Consumer RAM
Fourth Edition
• Even though RAM comes in packages

wider than bytes, RAM is still described
in bytes, such as a 1-GB stick or a 2-GB
stick

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Fourth Edition
Types of RAM

Guide to
Managing and Synchronous dynamic RAM
(SDRAM)
Troubleshooting PCs
Fourth Edition
• Synchronized with the system clock

• Came on a stick called a dual inline
memory module (DIMM)
• There are a wide number of pins on
DIMMs
– 168 pins are common on desktops.
– Laptops had 68 pins, 144 pins, and 172 pin
micro-DIMM.
– Laptops also had small outline-DIMM (SO-DIMM)
of 72 pins, 144 pins, or 200 pins.
• Most were 64 bits wide. (72-pin
SO-DIMM was 32 bits wide.)
Guide to
Managing and Synchronous dynamic RAM
(SDRAM) (continued)
Troubleshooting PCs
Fourth Edition
• Instead of an access speed, it has a clock

speed measured in MHz. Common speeds
were 66, 75, 83, 100, and 133 MHz.
Figure 9: 144-pin micro-DIMM

(photo courtesy of Micron Technology, Inc.).
Figure 10: A 168-pin DIMM

above a 144-pin SO-DIMM

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs RDRAM
Fourth Edition
• RDRAM could support speeds on the

frontside bus of up to 800 MHz. This was
needed for the quad-pumped CPUs.
• Originally thought to be the next best
thing, RDRAM suffered delays in
manufacturing and was significantly
more expensive than SDRAM.
• Commonly called a RIMM (RIMM doesn’t
stand for anything)
• 184-pin sticks are used in desktops, and
160-pin SO-RIMMs are used in laptops.

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs RDRAM (continued)
Fourth Edition
• Requires all RIMM slots (in a pair) to be

populated
– Continuity RIMM (CRIMM) sticks were essentially
RIMM terminators.
• RDRAM was proprietary and licensed to
work only with Intel systems for several
years.
– The goal was to push AMD out of the marketplace,
but the result was growth of other types of memory
and memory chips.

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs RDRAM (continued)
Fourth Edition
Figure 11: RDRAM
Figure 12: CRIMM

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs DDR SDRAM
Fourth Edition
• Fast RAM supported by AMD and other

manufacturers
– Doubles the throughput over SDRAM (makes two
processes for each clock cycle)
• Commonly referred to as DDR, DDR RAM,
and DDRAM
• Comes in 184-pin DIMMs
• Slots are keyed with guide notches, so
you cannot insert RAM in incorrect slots

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs DDR SDRAM (continued)
Fourth Edition
• Base clock is 100 MHz to 300 MHz with

the DDR speed rating double the clock
speed
– To determine the PC speed rating (bytes per
second), multiply the DDR speed, in MHz, by 8
– For example, a chip with a clock speed of 200 and
doubled DDR speed rating of 400 would be referred
to as a PC 3200 (400 MHz × 8)
• Supported as standard system RAM,
even by Intel for the Pentium 4

Guide to
Managing and
Fourth Edition
• Can make use of dual-channel

architecture
– Similar to Rambus in how it improves performance
– Works only when two slots are populated
• Dual slots are often blue
– If third slot exists, it is black

Guide to
Managing and
Fourth Edition
Figure 13: DDR SDRAM
Figure 14: 172-pin DDR SDRAM micro-DIMM

(photo courtesy of Kingston/Joint Harvest)

Guide to
Managing and
Fourth Edition
Figure 15: A motherboard showing the four RAM slots.

By populating the same color slots with identical RAM,
you can run in dual-channel mode.

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs DDR Speeds
Fourth Edition
Clock Speed DDR Speed Rating PC 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
Table 1: DDR Speeds

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs DDR2
Fourth Edition
• Doubled the clock to increase buffering

and overall performance
• Uses 240-pin DIMM (not compatible with
DDR DIMM)
Figure 16: 240-pin DDR2 DIMM

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs DDR2 (continued)
Fourth Edition
• PC rating is determined similar to how

DDR is determined (with another
doubling), and prefixed by a 2
– For example, for DDR2 with a clock speed of 200
MHz, the DDR I/O speed would be 400 MHz, the
DDR2 speed rating would be DDR2-800, and the PC
speed rating would be PC2-6400

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs DDR2 Speeds
Fourth Edition
Core RAM Clock DDR I/O Speed DDR2 Speed Rating PC Speed Rating
Speed
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
Table 2: DDR2 Speeds

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs DDR3
Fourth Edition
• Quadruples the clock to increase

buffering and overall performance
• Uses 240-pin DIMM (not compatible with
DDR2)
• PC rating is determined similar to how
DDR2 is determined (with another
doubling), and prefixed by a 3
– For example, for DDR3 with a clock speed of 200
MHz, the DDR I/O speed would be 800 MHz, the
DDR3 speed rating would be DDR3-1600, and the
PC speed rating would be PC3-12800

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs DDR3 (continued)
Fourth Edition
• Some chipsets that support DDR3 also

support a feature called triple-channel
memory
– Works a lot like dual-channel before it, but with
three sticks of RAM instead of two
• Intel’s LGA 1366 platform supports
triple-channel memory
– No AMD processors support a triple-channel
feature.
Figure 17: DDR2 DIMM on top of a DDR3 DIMM

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs DDR3 Speeds
Fourth Edition
Core RAM Clock DDR I/O Speed DDR3 Speed Rating PC Speed Rating
Speed
100 MHz 400 MHz DDR3-800 PC3-6400
133 MHz 533 MHz DDR3-1066 PC3-8500
166 MHz 667 MHz DDR3-1333 PC3-10667
200 MHz 800 MHz DDR3-1600 PC3-12800
233 MHz 933 MHz DDR3-1866 PC3-14900
266 MHz 1066 MHz DDR3-2133 PC3-17000
Table 3: DDR3 Speeds

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs RAM Variations
Fourth Edition
• Double-sided DIMMs
– Many sticks come in single-sided versions and
double-sided versions. Some double-sided sticks
can’t go into all motherboards.
• Latency: Refers to how quickly the RAM
responds to the electrical signal
– High latency: High wait time. Takes longer for RAM
to respond. CL3 is high latency.
– Lower latency: Lower wait time. RAM can get the
signal out in fewer clock ticks. CL2 is low latency.
– The goal is to match the RAM with the
motherboard. If necessary, when swapping RAM,
the RAM timings can be adjusted in BIOS.
Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs RAM Variations (continued)
Fourth Edition
Figure 18: Double-sided DDR SDRAM
Figure 19: Why is one more expensive than the other?

Guide to
Managing and
Fourth Edition
• Parity and ECC: Detect errors in memory

– Parity allows the computer to detect whether an
error occurred in the reading or writing of data in
memory.
– Error correction code (ECC) is an improvement over
parity. Not only can errors be detected, but they
can also be corrected.
– ECC is slower because of the extra calculations
required.
– Parity and ECC are used only on higher-end
workstations and servers. Often applications will
check and/or correct errors on the fly instead of
depending on the hardware to do so.

Guide to
Managing and
Fourth Edition
Figure 20: Ancient parity RAM stick

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs Working with RAM
Fourth Edition
• What's wrong with this picture?
Figure 21: Don't do this! Grabbing the contacts is a bad idea!

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs Why Add More RAM?
Fourth Edition
• Adding more RAM almost always

improves overall system performance,
processing speed, and stability.
• Determine whether insufficient RAM is
the cause of system problems.
• Pick the proper RAM for the system.
• Use good installation practices such as
keeping RAM sticks in antistatic
packaging and following strict ESD
practices.

Guide to
Managing and Why Add More RAM?
(continued)
Troubleshooting PCs
Fourth Edition
• Two symptoms show the need for more

RAM:
– General system sluggishness
– Disk thrashing or excess hard drive accessing,
generally indicated by using excessive movement
of files between RAM and a swap file or virtual
memory space on hard drive

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs Do You Need More RAM?
Fourth Edition
• Is your system sluggish?

– A slow-running system, especially with more
programs running, indicates RAM may be a
bottleneck.
• Are you experiencing disk thrashing?
– Disk thrashing occurs when data is swapped
between physical RAM and virtual RAM (the paging
file). The symptom of disk thrashing is that the disk
drive LED is blinking feverously and you can hear it
almost constantly moving.

Guide to
Managing and Do You Need More RAM?
(continued)
Troubleshooting PCs
Fourth Edition
• Page File: Windows uses a portion of the

hard drive as an extension of system
RAM—called a RAM cache
– A RAM cache is a block of cylinders on a hard drive
set aside as what's called a page file, swap file, or
virtual memory.
– When the PC starts running out of real RAM
because you've loaded too many programs, the
system swaps programs from RAM to the page file,
opening more space for programs currently active.
– All versions of Windows use a page file.

Guide to
(continued)
Troubleshooting PCs
Fourth Edition
Figure 22: A RAM thermometer

showing that more programs
take more RAM
Figure 23: Not enough RAM

to load program D

Guide to
(continued)
Troubleshooting PCs
Fourth Edition
Figure 24: Program B being

unloaded from memory
Figure 25: Program B stored in the

page file—room is made for
Program D

Guide to
(continued)
Troubleshooting PCs
Fourth Edition
Figure 26: You can’t tell

whether a program is swapped
or not.
Figure 27: Program C is

swapped to the page file.

Guide to
(continued)
Troubleshooting PCs
Fourth Edition
Figure 28: Program B is swapped back into RAM.

Guide to
(continued)
Troubleshooting PCs
Fourth Edition
Figure 29: FreeMeter

Guide to
(continued)
Troubleshooting PCs
Fourth Edition
• System RAM recommendations:

– Microsoft’s system RAM recommendations for
various Windows operating systems are very low.
– Consider installing additional memory to reach the
reasonable minimum for solid performance or if you
are a power user.
– Windows XP: Minimum system requirements: 64
MB. Reasonable minimum: 256 MB. Solid
performance: 1 GB. Power User: 2 GB.
– Windows Vista: Minimum system requirements:
1 GB (32-bit), 2 GB (64-bit). Reasonable minimum:
2 GB. Solid performance: 4 GB. Power User: 8 GB
(with the 64-bit version).

Guide to
(continued)
Troubleshooting PCs
Fourth Edition
• System RAM recommendations

(continued):
– Windows 7: Minimum system requirements: 1 GB
(32-bit), 2 GB (64-bit). Reasonable minimum: 2
GB. Solid performance: 4 GB. Power user: 8 GB.

Guide to
(continued)
Troubleshooting PCs
Fourth Edition
Operating System Minimum Reasonable Solid Performance Power User

System Minimum
Requirements
Windows XP 64 MB 256 MB 1 GB 2 GB
Windows Vista 1 GB (32-bit), 2 2 GB 4 GB 8 GB

GB (64-bit)
Windows 7 1 GB (32-bit), 2 2 GB 4 GB 8 GB
GB (64-bit)
Table 4: Windows RAM recommendations

Guide to
(continued)
Troubleshooting PCs
Fourth Edition
• Determining current RAM capacity

– Use Properties for My Computer/Computer to see
the RAM configuration.

Guide to
(continued)
Troubleshooting PCs
Fourth Edition
Figure 30: Mike has a lot of RAM!

Guide to
(continued)
Troubleshooting PCs
Fourth Edition
Figure 31: Performance tab in Windows XP7 Task Manager

Guide to
(continued)
Troubleshooting PCs
Fourth Edition
Figure 32: Dedicating a flash drive to ReadyBoost to enhance

system performance

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs Getting the Right RAM
Fourth Edition
• Different types of RAM

– You must use the type of RAM that the
motherboard accepts. The first step is to determine
what the motherboard will accept. You will typically
check the manual for this answer.
• Open the case and see what’s installed
– For example, if your system can accept 2 GB and
the tools tell you that you have 1 GB installed, you
might jump to the conclusion that you can add 1
GB. However, when you open the case you find
that you have four 256 MB sticks. There’s no room
for new RAM unless you replace the existing RAM.

Guide to
Managing and Getting the Right RAM
(continued)
Troubleshooting PCs
Fourth Edition
Figure 33: The motherboard manual shows how much RAM

the motherboard will handle.

Guide to
Managing and Getting the Right RAM
(continued)
Troubleshooting PCs
Fourth Edition
• Mix and match at your peril

– Different RAM sizes aren’t always handled well in
motherboards. It’s best to choose RAM sticks that
match technology, capacity, and speed.
• Mixing speeds
– It’s best not to mix speeds.
– Worst case, you may cause random lockups and
data corruption.
– Best case, it’ll work at the slowest speed.
– You can place higher-rated RAM into a slower-rated
motherboard, but the RAM will work at the slower
rate of the motherboard.

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs Installing DIMMs and RIMMs
Fourth Edition
• The RAM sticks are keyed so that they

can go in only one way.
• Line up the keys and place the stick in
the slot.
• Push down and the tabs will lock into
position.
• SPD (Serial Presence Detect). Upon
power-up, the SPD chip detects the
memory in the system and reports it to
the BIOS.
– Any program can query the SPD. CPU-Z, a Cool
Tool, displays some of the SPD information.
Guide to
Managing and Installing DIMMs and RIMMs
(continued)
Troubleshooting PCs
Fourth Edition
Figure 34: Inserting a DIMM
Figure 35: SPD chip on a stick

Guide to
(continued)
Troubleshooting PCs
Fourth Edition
Figure 36: CPU-Z showing RAM information

Guide to
(continued)
Troubleshooting PCs
Fourth Edition
• The RAM count

– Upon power-up, BIOS will count and report the
amount of RAM detected.
– This is often a binary count, so 256 MB wouldn’t be
exactly 256 million.
– Usually a ballpark number tells you you’ve been
successful.

Guide to
(continued)
Troubleshooting PCs
Fourth Edition
Figure 37: Hey, where’s the rest of my RAM?!
Figure 38: RAM count after proper insertion of DIMMs

Guide to
Managing and Installing SO-DIMMS
on Laptops
Troubleshooting PCs
Fourth Edition
• For years, laptops had proprietary RAM

packages, making this difficult.
– However, the acceptance of SO-DIMMs over the
years has made it much easie.r
• First, power off, unplug, and remove the
battery pack—follow ESD procedures.
• Identify the access point for the SO-
DIMM.
– This is usually either under the keyboard or via an
access panel on the back.
• Replace the SO-DIMM.

Guide to
Managing and Installing SO-DIMMS
on Laptops (continued)
Troubleshooting PCs
Fourth Edition
Figure 39: A RAM access panel on a laptop
Figure 40: Snapping in an SO-DIMM

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs
Fourth Edition
Troubleshooting RAM

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs Memory Errors
Fourth Edition
• Memory errors can include:

– Parity errors
– ECC error messages
– System lockups
– Page faults
– Other error screens in Windows

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs Memory Errors (continued)
Fourth Edition
• Write down memory error addresses.

– If the error returns with the same address each
time, it is likely a RAM stick failure.
• If the error address changes, it is likely
not a RAM failure.
• System lockups and page faults often
indicate RAM problem.
• RAM and parity errors can trigger a non-
maskable interrupt (NMI) that results in
the Blue Screen of Death (BSoD).

Guide to
Managing and
Fourth Edition
Figure 41: Windows error message

Guide to
Managing and
Fourth Edition
Figure 42: Blue Screen of Death

Guide to
Managing and
Fourth Edition
• Not all intermittent errors are caused by

bad RAM
– Dying power supply, electrical interference, and
buggy applications or hardware can also produce
intermittent errors.

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs Testing RAM
Fourth Edition
• Several RAM testing devices are

available, but many are expensive.
• Can replace one stick at a time until
problems disappear.
• Use a software-based tester such as
Memtest86.
• Windows 7 includes the Memory
Diagnostics Tool, which can
automatically scan your computer’s RAM
when you encounter a problem.

Guide to
Managing and
Troubleshooting PCs Testing RAM (continued)
Fourth Edition
Figure 43: Memtest86 in action

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Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+®

© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

• 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

© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

• Program code is copied from your hard

© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

• Special semiconductor that temporarily

© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

• Intel processors since the 8088 require

Figure 2: What do these numbers mean?

• CPU accesses memory via MCC

© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

• Early RAM on the 8088 used an 8-bit-

Figure 4: Codebook again

• 8086 chip could have used a 16-bit data bus,

Figure 5: Pumped-up 8086 MCC at work

© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

• 80386 required a 32-bit-wide data bus

© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

Figure 6: That’s a lot of real estate used by RAM chips!

© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

• Single inline memory modules (SIMM)

Figure 7: A 72-pin SIMM

© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

• Current RAM is 32 bits wide, 64 bits

Figure 8: The MCC knows the real location of the DRAM.

© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

• Even though RAM comes in packages

© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

• Synchronized with the system clock

• Instead of an access speed, it has a clock

Figure 9: 144-pin micro-DIMM

Figure 10: A 168-pin DIMM

© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

• RDRAM could support speeds on the

© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

• Requires all RIMM slots (in a pair) to be

© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

Figure 11: RDRAM

Figure 12: CRIMM

© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

• Fast RAM supported by AMD and other

© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

• Base clock is 100 MHz to 300 MHz with

© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

• Can make use of dual-channel

© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

Figure 13: DDR SDRAM

Figure 14: 172-pin DDR SDRAM micro-DIMM

© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

Figure 15: A motherboard showing the four RAM slots.

© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

Clock Speed DDR Speed Rating PC Speed Rating

Table 1: DDR Speeds