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Hi a few q's
I want to add more ram and looking in the board manual it tells me the only type of ram to use is " 3.3 volt unbuffered and unregistered " What I would like to know is what does unbuffered and unregistered mean? and are all DIMM's of this type (PC133) the same? I'd hate to buy a stick and then find out I have the wrong type since most sellers don't tell you what the specs are on their generic ram
I wanted to buy another 512megs of Value select Corsair ram which I can get over here in Australia for around $145 Aus to add to the 256 I already have and was hoping that it would be good enough

Thanks in advance for any help
Steve

Registered RAM is generally used in servers and a lot of registered RAM is also ECC. Registered modules delay all info transfered to them by one clock cycle. This is done to ensure data integrity on modules with a large number of chips.

Buffered modules have a buffer to help the memory chipset deal with systems with a large amount of RAM. Again, buffered modules are usually used in servers.

glc1's explanation is correct.
most memory used in workstations/home computers is unregistered and unbuffered (and also non-ECC). like glc1 said, buffered/registered memory is used mainly in servers or special situations in which very high memory integrity is needed, or in computers that have very large amounts of memory (a few gigs).

your usual memory sold by most online vendors is the regular memory you need for your computer.

go to www.corsair.com, look at the listing of the kinds of memory they have. they say if it is a registered module or not.

EDIT: the correct URL is www.corsairmicro.com

Hey guys thanks for your quick and helpful answers they realy help me understand things a bit more, one problem dodecahedron, when I click on the link you posted it starts to load corsair.com but then redirects my page to http://www.lightbridge.com/ I thought this might still be the place but no luck finding anything on ram, also typing in the url directly sends me to this site as well, I'll keep trying, might be my settings.

anyway thanks again guys

Steve

you're right, my bad.
the correct URL is http://www.corsairmicro.com

i only mentioned this company because you said in your post that you want to buy their memory. but most memory module manufacturers list on their website the various memory modules they make and their specs, and this includes info about whether the module is buffered/unbuffered; registered/unregistered; ECC/non-ECC.
try looking up the websites of Corsair, Crucial, Kingston, Samsung, just a few off the top of my head. there are many more.

Thanks again dodecahedron that second link works great, sorry when I said that most sellers don't list their specs I meant the actual comp stores
( at least in the few stores in Sydney I go to ) don't tend to give you much info unless you ask ( which with all the info I've gotten here in the past few days I will be ) the place I found in Sydney yesterday is the first one I've seen that actually tells you the ram specs so I guess I'll have to look for more of these stores instead of the ones I go to

Thanks again for your help

Steve

S_Colt45 wrote:sorry when I said that most sellers don't list their specs I meant the actual comp stores
( at least in the few stores in Sydney I go to ) don't tend to give you much info unless you ask ( which with all the info I've gotten here in the past few days I will be ) the place I found in Sydney yesterday is the first one I've seen that actually tells you the ram specs so I guess I'll have to look for more of these stores instead of the ones I go to

yeah, that's usually the case, you just have to jot down the model numbers of the items they have and then do some research on the web and find out exactly the specs and stuff yourself.
anyway that way you're also sure you get the RIGHT and CORRECT info, too