GA-EP45-DS3R RAM voltage reads high?

[Chucko]

Figured my first post here should be a request for tech info...

I just built a Linux system around a GA-EP45-DS3R mobo (F10 BIOS), Q6600, and 2x2GB Crucial DDR2 1066. The RAM voltage is shown in the BIOS settings as 1.8V, but reads on the PC Health BIOS page as 1.98V, and Linux is seeing the same result.

So, the questions:

1 - Can I trust the 1.98V reading?

2 - Where can I probe with a voltmeter to verify?

Thanks!

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-EP45-DS3R RAM voltage reads high?

Nope, we do not accept requests for help in your first post here...................

J/K

Did you try setting 1.9-2.0 and reboot and check and see what those give you? Sometimes certain ones are off a bit, and sometimes they will drop a bit within windows as well. Check with Everest Ultimate and see what values you see in sensor section as well

As for Measure points, just use the inside of a empty ram slot, as you see here as well >>>
Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 Motherboard Review - Page 14 - Hardware Canucks

[VorLonUK]

Re: GA-EP45-DS3R RAM voltage reads high?

Nope, we do not accept requests for help in your first post here...................

J/K

Did you try setting 1.9-2.0 and reboot and check and see what those give you? Sometimes certain ones are off a bit, and sometimes they will drop a bit within windows as well. Check with Everest Ultimate and see what values you see in sensor section as well

As for Measure points, just use the inside of a empty ram slot, as you see here as well >>>
Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 Motherboard Review - Page 14 - Hardware Canucks

With the bios monitoring being so accurate on that particular motherboard revision and bios version, I highly recommend you Don't try and check voltages such as Vdimm where proper test points are not present. I spent many years mainly working on Hifi, Video and TV to components level as a bench engineer and even after 15 years or so of that experience, you can still have the odd "slip" with a probe on LSI electronics and short something out.
Also you have to be careful when using some cheaper multimeters as opposed to DVM's as on the Voltage Range some of them may have a loading of something like 100kohm per volt (as opposed to many mega-ohms of the DVM) - which means measuring Voltage "outputs" is normally ok, but sticking the probe on part of the drive electronics may affect the output, as the multimeter becomes "part of the circuit" too.

[Chucko]

Re: GA-EP45-DS3R RAM voltage reads high?

Thanks guys!

@lsdmeasap (great avatar BTW), why didn't I think of that? Thanks for the link. I can't run Everest Ultimate - remember, I'm running Linux (Fedora 10 to be exact), not Windows. I've found some monitoring s/w (lm_sensors) but it mostly echoes what the BIOS is telling me so far. I hope to do some RAM voltage tweaking, no time to date though. Too busy undervolting the CPU...

@VorlonUK, I know what you mean - I've been playing with electronics since I was a little kid, and I'm 50 now. Been there, zapped that! I have a couple of good DMMs.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-EP45-DS3R RAM voltage reads high?

Ahh, sorry about that everest comment, I musta not noticed or forgot you said Linux.

Well you can check the various BIOS settings against what you can monitor with, and the PC health page of course and see what each gives you. The amount should be close to the setting, but may vary different amount at different settings.

[Chucko]

Re: GA-EP45-DS3R RAM voltage reads high?

FYI, I got home from a week of business travel and decided to set the DDR2 voltage manually. The BIOS had been overvolting the RAM on the Auto setting! At the 1.80V setting, the voltage now reads as 1.78-1.81V.

I've also discovered that this RAM doesn't meet its speed specs, but that's another story.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-EP45-DS3R RAM voltage reads high?

Ya, Auto is often wrong. What do you mean it does not meet it's specs?