DDR Drive Strength

KennyT772 · Oct 17, 2007

I'm trying to get my tracers running 300mhz orthos stable and I'm curious what the drive strength option in the bios does. Anyone Know?

JC316 · Oct 17, 2007

Supposedly changes the input and output buffers or some crap like that, I messed with it on my Tforce 550 and never found any gains, or losses.

sneekypeet · Oct 17, 2007

Hey kenny...just confirmed with Athlon as well and we both think you should set the drive strength to 8

DRDNA · Oct 17, 2007

I am almost certain that option in the DFI bios was to help with Booting and the dreaded COLD BUG ...like phase and the likes ...

regan1985 · Oct 17, 2007

i think your right, ive never changed it on my dfi board

sneekypeet · Oct 17, 2007

I know if its set @ 4 or lower 3rd party apps read it as weak strength.

DRDNA · Oct 17, 2007

The only thing it may help with is booting if the PC is unable to boot to windows ...but again almost certain its in refrence to the COLD BUG...I leave that set to Auto.

sneekypeet · Oct 17, 2007

here Kenny this may help your quest....and sorry DRDNA...nowhere am I getting info on coldbugs, just that it will stabilize the ram and its voltages....

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=65168

DRDNA · Oct 17, 2007

I remember readin on the old DFI forum but I just added a post over to the new DFI forum and it reads>>>> exactly what would we use the DRAM Drive Strength for ????? whay run anything other than auto? I thought I read some where it was suppose to help with cold bug issues? <<<is that correct? Is there a guid line for the DRAM Drive Strength settings?Any help would be appreciated.
http://www.diy-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=79364
hopefully an update will be had

mandelore · Oct 17, 2007

on my board, for high ram overclocks a low drive strength must be used, so possibly try a lower than default setting

sneekypeet · Oct 17, 2007

DRDNA said:
I remember readin on the old DFI forum but I just added a post over to the new DFI forum and it reads>>>> exactly what would we use the DRAM Drive Strength for ????? whay run anything other than auto? I thought I read some where it was suppose to help with cold bug issues? <<<is that correct? Is there a guid line for the DRAM Drive Strength settings?Any help would be appreciated.
http://www.diy-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=79364
hopefully an update will be had

good work...hopefully they get to you on this issue!!!! :respect:

largon · Oct 17, 2007

Drive strength is a sort of a vDIMM.
The "vDIMM" we all know is the operating voltage of the memory cells themselves located in the core of a RAM IC but vDIMM is not the only voltage influencing the RAM chip... Remember the structure of a DDR RAM IC... There's two clock frequencies inside the chip: one in the memory cells (½ of the rated I/O freq = 200MHz for DDR800, etc.) and one in the I/O buffers (400MHz for DDR800). Drive strength dictates the strength of the signal the memory controller uses to access (read/write) the I/O buffers.

It is speculated that the IMC on AMD Hammer arch CPUs goes haywire when the core is under extreme cooling such as phase or liquid nitrogen. Increasing the drive strengths can help to keep the mem ctrl stable...
To some extent.

It is worth a notice that different DIMM slots on a motherboard are usually factory configured to use diff. drive strengths to compensate interference/differences in DIMM signal trace routings. This means manually setting strong drive strength may result in dangerous signaling voltages, consequently damaging the RAM/MC.

DRDNA · Oct 18, 2007

Very nice description largon! You the man

KennyT772 · Oct 18, 2007

From what it seems the drive strength is the carrier voltage, or the change in voltage for signaling 0's and 1's. All digital devices use a high/low current for carrying the signal, the higher the drive strength the large the difference in voltages between 0 state and 1 state. From the looks of things the A64 imc has an issue with interpreting the stock voltage differential at very low temps, so this setting allows for correction.

I'm still interested in what the various options actually set though.

regan1985 · Oct 18, 2007

just what i thought it was

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DDR Drive Strength

KennyT772

New Member

JC316

Knows what makes you tick

sneekypeet

Retired Super Moderator

DRDNA

regan1985

New Member

sneekypeet

Retired Super Moderator

DRDNA

sneekypeet

Retired Super Moderator

DRDNA

mandelore

sneekypeet

Retired Super Moderator

largon

DRDNA

KennyT772

New Member

regan1985

New Member

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