Chapter 4

Question 1

What is original RAM known as?

Answer 1

Synchronous D ram or SD Ram. Synchronous meaning it is synchronized to the same crystal.

Question 2

How many pins does a SD RAM have?

Answer 2

SD RAM has 168 Pins and has two notches (Only ram that has two notches)

Question 3

True or False: SD RAM runs at the same speed as your motherboard?

Answer 3

True. SD RAM runs at the same speed as the board. Ex: 66 MHz, 100 MHz whatever it is.

Question 4

What is DDR SD RAM?

Answer 4

Double Data Rate SD RAM (DDR SD RAM) mainly known as DDR RAM, for one click of the clock it gives two bits of information.

Question 5

How many pins does DDR SD RAM have?

Answer 5

DDR SD RAM has 184 with a single notch.

Question 6

How do we define the speed of the RAM?

Answer 6

When you buy your RAM your motherboard needs RAM at certain speeds. So we get into the DDR or PC ratings

Question 7

What is DDR2?

Answer 7

Double Data Rate 2 is another generation of RAM that has 240 pins and a single notch.

Question 8

How do you get the Speed of DDR2 RAM?

Answer 8

Core/clock speed meaning the speed of the motherboard. speed rating is double the clock speed when it comes to DDR2 its then doubled once more and the PC Speed rating is 8 times whatever the speed rating is.

Clock speed: 266 * 2 = DDR I/O speed: 532 * 2 = DDR2 Speed Rating DDR2-1066 * 8 = PC Speed Rating: PC2-8500.

Question 9

How do you tell the difference between DDR and DDR2 when you can’t tell by the notches?

Answer 9

Look at the PC rating. If it says PC- Its DDR. If it says PC2 we know its DDR2.

Question 10

How many pins does DDR3 have?

Answer 10

Double Data Rate 3 RAM (DDR3) has 240 pins just like DDR2, but DDR3 created wonderful bandwidths.

Question 11

How to calculate the speed of DDR3?

Answer 11

Clock Speed: 300MHz *4 = DDR I/O speed 1200 MHz *2 = DDR3 Speed Rating DDR3-2400 * 8 = PC Speed Rating: PC3-19200.

Question 12

What is DDR4?

Answer 12

DDR4 Double Data Rate 4 RAM has 288 pins with DDR4 we use bandwidth we are using MT/s or Mega Transfer per second meaning the actual amount of data that is being moved.

Question 13

How can you tell the speed of a DDR4 stick?

Answer 13

If the DDR4 stick is 400 MHz
Clock Speed: 400 MHz * 8 = Bandwidth: 3200 MT/s = DDR4 Speed Rating DDR4-3200*8 = PC speed Rating: PC4-25600.

Question 14

True or false: Every stick of RAM stores a certain amount of bytes of RAM we can use.

Answer 14

True: every stick of RAM stores a certain amount of bytes we can use.

Question 15

What is the term we are looking for when we talk about the capacity of RAM?

Answer 15

RAM Chips

Question 16

True or False: RAM Chips internal organization is based on a square?

Answer 16

True

Question 17

How are we able to accomplish having RAM of 512 Meg, 2 gig, 4 gig. and 16 gig?

Answer 17

We are able to accomplish this with Double Stick RAM which is just a stick of RAM with RAM on both sides.

Question 18

Most common downfall of double sided RAM?

Answer 18

The most common issue would be few motherboards might have a problem with it. (Check motherboard book)

Question 19

How many channels (slots) can a motherboard have?

Answer 19

Some motherboards can have 2 channels, 4 channels, 8 channels even 16 channels.

Question 20

What is the Total RAM?

Answer 20

All the RAM added up.

Question 21

Why is RAM sold in pairs?

Answer 21

RAM is sold in pairs due to all motherboards using this concept called Channels Dual Channel Memory.

Question 22

True or False: You must have two RAM Sticks of the same size and speed into very specific slots.

Answer 22

True: You must have two RAM Sticks of the same size and speed into very specific slots.

Question 23

How can we know for sure if we installed the RAM properly?

Answer 23

We can use our motherboard book to show us how to properly install the RAM into is recommended slots.

Question 24

What happens if you put one stick of RAM in a dual channel?

Answer 24

Your PC won’t even boot. For your PC to run as fast as it can with dual you will need two ram sticks. We even had three channel motherboards that you needed to throw three sticks in.

Question 25

True or False: When it comes to putting RAM into a PC make sure you are putting identical RAM in any given channel?

Answer 25

True, make sure to put identical RAM in any given channel so on one channel you want to make sure that they are the same speed the same capacity (needs to happen) on a separate channel you can put different speed ram (advised against it).

Question 26

RAM has a ton of unique features one is known as Parity vs. ECC (Parity vs. Error Correction Code) what is it?

Answer 26

Some sticks of RAM come with 8 chips (one chip is a byte) sometimes we will see sticks with 9 chips on it that extra chip is the Parity chip, a type of error-checking memory that uses a parity bit to verify the accuracy of data stored in a computer's random-access memory. Parity is older and not seen much today. If you buy a motherboard that needs this type of parity we call it ECC or error correction code.

Question 27

True or False RAM always dies?

Answer 27

False: RAM hardly ever dies unless it was electrocuted by human touch.

Question 28

What is one of the differences with Parity ram and ECC?

Answer 28

With Parity we can have one of the eight chips be bad where as with ECC we can have two of the chips be bad.

Question 29

True or False: ECC can be put on any motherboard?

Answer 29

False: ECC is extremely expensive and can only be pout on motherboards designed for it. (seen mainly in servers)

Question 30

What is a SO-DIMM?

Answer 30

Small Outline Dual Inline memory Module (SO-DIMM) is a RAM found in places RAM sticks don't fit like laptops.

Question 31

How many pin package does a SO-DIMM DDR4 have?

Answer 31

260 Pin Package

Question 32

How many pin packages does a SO-DIMM DDR2 or DDR have?

Answer 32

Anything before DDR3 there is no specific number of pins they could have 200 or 144 pins there is no correlation that only use that.

Question 33

How many pin package does a SO-DIMM DDR3 have?

Answer 33

204 Pin Package

Question 34

True or False: Nothing changes when it comes to SO-DIMM RAM?

Answer 34

True nothing changes as they also use dual channel or even possibly triple channel. Still have to use exact same type they come in pairs they are just smaller.

Question 35

What is a SPD chip?

Answer 35

A serial presence detect chip (SPD chip) is a tiny chip built into all RAM sticks that allows your system to query the RAM Chip and says what your capacity is how fast you are, what technology are you, what's your model number and who made you. (Can also use CPU-Z to figure out same information)

Question 36

True or false: You can't have too much RAM?

Answer 36

False you can never have enough RAM not enough RAM can lead to problems Problems such as out-of-memory errors.

Question 37

How can we prevent out-of-memory errors?

Answer 37

We can trick parts of our hard drive into thinking its RAM we call this virtual memory.

Question 38

True or False: Every OS has a virtual memory feature?

Answer 38

True: every OS has a built-in virtual memory feature. We do not want to use virtual memory we want to add more RAM. Virtual RAM is just there until we can add more RAM into the system.

Question 39

How can one get to virtual memory on a computer using Windows?

Answer 39

Right click the start button and click on System then click Advanced System Settings, System properties should pop up, under performance click settings, then click advanced, and you should see your virtual memory.

Question 40

How could one see the virtual memory in command prompt on Windows?

Answer 40

First go to the root directory by typing dir /ah and you should see a list and within that list you should see swapfile.sys swapfile= virtual memory.

Question 41

Why should you try avoid using virtual memory?

Answer 41

If someone were to use virtual memory we could see their computer running very slow because instead of the CPU writing on the ram its writing to be the hard drive. To fix this just add more RAM.

Question 42

How do we install RAM?

Answer 42

When we install RAM there are little levers on the motherboard above the channels that you push down to put the ram into place. RAM needs to snap into board.

Question 43

What should you do if you a client tells you their RAM is not working on their PC?

Answer 43

Comptia's A+ Troubleshooting Theory steps. Step 1: identify the problem: In this scenario, our speaker has ram that does not fit into the channels of the motherboard. Step 2: Establish a theory of probable cause: Theory is we might have the wrong type of RAM. (refer to the motherboard book) Step 3: Test the theory: Speaker refers to his book to see what ram he needs and how it needs to be placed. Grabs what he knows is the right ram and notices the ram he used first time is not the right ram. Step 4: Establish a plan of action to resolve the problem and implement our the solution: Puts known good ddr4 ram into the channel and it locks in. Step 5: Verify full system functionality and if applicable implement preventive measures. Step 6: Document the findings.