On Fri, 18 Jul 2003 17:07:49 -0500, Bari Ari wrote:
>Stefan Reinauer wrote:
>
>>* ron minnich <rminnich@lanl.gov> [030718 21:12]:
>>
>>
>>>On Fri, 18 Jul 2003, Dave Ashley wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>What disadvantages does SPD have other than it is more complex? Wouldn't it
>>>>let you then be able to correctly use any DDR module you want?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>some SPD roms have incorrect information. You have to take care with SPD.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>Does this happen if you buy cheap ram, or ram of a certain type?
>>How can this kind of problem be avoided? I heard and read this a couple
>>of times now, but (I think) it never happened to me 'til now
>>
>SPD only works if the RAM vendor properly programs the serial EEPROM.
>RAM is a commodity item and vendors churn out millions of modules a
>year. An assembly line can build thousands of modules per day. If there
>is a hickup on the procurement side (parts not showing up or late for
>assembly) an assembler may be forced to use a different part number that
>is in stock that is still compatible with the module pcb layout but does
>not have the same timing specs. Other times the SPD info is just
>programmed wrong and the only QC is based on the end user complaining
>about a problem. Another way that SPD breaks is by flaky software or SPD
>bus corruption that writes data to the SPD device on the RAM module.
>Don't be surprised by how much broken PC hardware gets sent off to
>market with fixes via BIOS and other still broken means.
>
>-Bari
>
>
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>Linuxbios@clustermatic.org
Hi there,
I don;t know wether this is of any assistance in your problem, but i recently wrote an application to read and re-program the Serial EEPROMs, used for SPD, to allow a 128Mb part to work in an old 64Mb application. Would this be of any help to anyone? Its a Labview (see www.ni.com) application and the programming was achieved through the PC parallel port.
Cheers for now
AS
--
Alex Scarbro, linuxbios@techfreakz.net on 18/07/2003