V2000Z bios f.21 DDR400 Question

Hi guys.

Today my V2000Z arrived at my home. I bought it with only 256MB of RAM cause it seemed like I could upgrade to 1GB DDR400 cheaper than I could buy DDR333 from HP.

I bought what I thought was Corsair VS1GSDS400 from Fry's Electronics today and installed it. When I restarted and ran cpu-z it listed the ram as running at 160MHz. When I went to the ram info tab it said Corsair VS1GSDS333 and only listed timings for 133 and 166. Did I get some ram that is mislabeled, or is some bios bug interfering with the reading of the timings off the RAM and preventing me from running at DDR400?

 

Oh, I had read the threads about the V2000Z being finicky with old bios versions before I bought the thing, but since I saw that people had luck upgrading to DDR400 with the right bios version, I didn't think I would have any problems.

 

Do you still have the old 256 MB stick in there, along with the 1GB DDR400 ?

If so, the computer automatically downclocks to the lowest memory: Meaning that if you combine two stick, one is DDR333 and the other DDR400, the memory will run at DDR333 speeds......

I think that's how it works..

 

That is how it works, but I tried it with the 1GB stick by itself. I am mostly confused by cpu-z listing the stick as P/N VS1GSDS333. I would have thought if the mainboard couldn't run it as DDR400 it would still list the correct part number, but show that it is not running at the highest setting.

When I said "ram info tab" above I was refering to the "SPD" tab.

 

I guess somehow the stick you bought has goofed up SPD timings table. CPUz can read SPD Timing table from RAM if available. I think there is no DDR400 timing on that stick.

Best bet is get it replace from frys. The OCZ 1GB from newegg has proven to be working alright at DDR400 speed on this V2000z.

 

I didn't get whether you are running bios f.21 or older? v2000z should not have any problems with a single stick so if your bios is OK, then return the stick and bring the laptop with you there (if possible)

 

It was the ram; must have been mislabeled at the factory :shrug:

I am running f.21 bios (although i tried an old copy of f.11). Then I saw that in cpuz that the 200mhz timing table wasn't there and then I looked at the P/N and it was wrong.