How to determine memory type?

swagger · 04-17-2006, 02:04 AM

I have a box colocated about 60 miles away that I need to add memory to. The problem is that I don't know what speed the existing memory is. I checked the invoice from two years ago and it only lists "Kingston DDR RAM", so I don't know what speed it is... The last thing I want to do is drive 60 miles, take the production box down to open it up and look, go find the RAM (if I can even find it locally) and then have to take it down again to install it.

Does anyone know of any way to determine what speed the memory is, or even the model of the motherboard (it's only listed as "Asus motherboard" on the invoice)? I've checked the output of dmesg, but there's nothing useful there.

My hopes aren't too high, but if anybody knows of a tool/tip/trick that can help, I'd greatly appreciate it.

TIA,
St-

macemoneta · 04-17-2006, 07:11 PM

Well, if the motherboard supports ACPI, you can use dmidecode:

dmidecode > dmi.txt

You should see useful information like:

Code:

        Memory Controller Information
                Error Detecting Method: 64-bit ECC
                Error Correcting Capabilities:
                        None
                        Single-bit Error Correcting
                        Double-bit Error Correcting
                        Error Scrubbing
                Supported Interleave: One-way Interleave
                Current Interleave: One-way Interleave
                Maximum Memory Module Size: 1024 MB
                Maximum Total Memory Size: 3072 MB
                Supported Speeds:
                        70 ns
                        60 ns
                        50 ns
                Supported Memory Types:
                        ECC
                        SIMM
                        DIMM
                        SDRAM
                Memory Module Voltage: 2.9 V
                Associated Memory Slots: 3
                        0x0008
                        0x0009
                        0x000A
                Enabled Error Correcting Capabilities:
                        None
                        Single-bit Error Correcting
                        Double-bit Error Correcting
                        Error Scrubbing

and

Code:

        Memory Module Information
                Socket Designation: DIMM0
                Bank Connections: 0 2
                Current Speed: Unknown
                Type: ECC DIMM
                Installed Size: 512 MB (Double-bank Connection)
                Enabled Size: 512 MB (Double-bank Connection)
                Error Status: OK

It's not as good as having the motherboard list of supported memory, but it's better than nothing.

Update: The motherboard information is also listed, for example:

Code:

        Base Board Information
                Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer Inc.
                Product Name: K8VSEDX
                Version: Rev 2.00
                Serial Number: MB-000000000

Electro · 04-17-2006, 07:22 PM

You can try to install lmsensors to get some information about the memory.

Did the system come with the motherboard manual. If it did not why is the system in production.

Depending the system. If you buy DDR400 ECC memory, you will do ok. If you are using parity memory, then you definately have to include that in buying the memory modules. If the motherboard can only accecpt unbuffer instead of buffered memory creates additional headaches.

You can have qualify and trustworthy employee take down the server and open it up. Then he or she writes down all the hardware include model numbers of the chips that is in the server which should have been done two years ago.

swagger · 04-17-2006, 08:15 PM

Thank you macemoneta for the dmidecode info - that did the trick. With it, I was able to obtain the motherboard model and find the manual online, which gives me the type of memory it'll support. Rather than add a module, I've decided to just replace it with a larger one, but at least I know which one to get now. Thanks again.

Electro, I appreciate your effort, but I could have done without the sarcasm. My record keeping isn't the issue - I know what I should have done.

Thanks to both -
S-