Do RAM Spreaders/Heatsinks Work? Trying to get my Samsung DTL to 400DDR

[tyoung88]

I'm currently in the process of burning in my Samsung DTL Ram running at 1.8v trying to get to 400DDR. I haven't opened the case to see if the the stick of ram is hot but i know that some brands come with heat spreaders. Are these just a bunch of marketing hype or do they actually work? I saw some antec ram heatspreaders at crapusa that were cheap and was thinking on getting them. What do you guys think?

 

[Acanthus]

they do lower temps a bit, as for raising yields, i really dont know...

 

[Clevor]

When my Samsung was running DDR400 I checked the temp with an infra red probe and it was barely 37 C. When I pinched one chip with my fingers for like 10 seconds, it was barely warm. I was going to put heat spreaders on mine but felt it wasn't worth it. If you ask me, the thick adhesive tape will only keep heat in. If you remove it and use Arctic Silver, the spreaders will slide around unless you use Superglue to affix it.

Moreover, when I sell the ram here in Japan, it will be hard to prove it is Samsung, which gets a bit better price.

Corsair claims the spreader is good for 6 mhz DDR, though.

 

[BD231]

The heat spreaders are for double sided ram, almost all single side runs extremely cool and heat spreaders are pointless on them.

 

[NanoMem]

Generally, heat spreaders are used by vendors to hide true ratings of ram chips. I would only use them if and only if I know exactly what's underneath them.

Peace

 

[TurtleMan]

umm i would say don't get the one from crapusa, bc it looked like crap ...
i bought the Thermaltake memory heatsink and spreader, like 9 bucks , online for cheaper
just for the look, it looks good with the blue heat spreader on, as temp wise, i think it does lower it down a bit
but for the look, yes it is worth it

 

[SupermanCK]

the wise thing to do is to check if you memory chips get hot at all during testing....make sure you are static-free...if it's good to touch...i won't get the memory spreader...and if you have good air flow in your case...it is also a plus

 

[Technonut]

tyoung88, LMK what you get your DTL up to. I was rooked by the deal that Newegg had recently advertising Samsung 256MB CTL sticks, and received 2 DTL sticks today instead. :| I looked back at the ad that now does not even list the CTL, and states that Newegg cannot say which you will get.

I have my AT7 Rig apart at the moment, but do have both DTL sticks running at 166MHz CAS2 in a KG7-R with aggressive timings. I also have an XP333 rig going with a 256MB stick of XMS 2700 @ 195 CAS 2 Normal timing. I probably will throw the DTL in when I have a chance to see what it will do in the XP333.

 

[TurtleMan]

umm how do u burn in

 

[tyoung88]

OK I think the burn-in thing is definately bs. I upped the voltage to 2.8 and ran Prime 95 with various fsb speeds for the past week, 12 hours of Prime95 per session.

My DTL Ram still does exactly the same max:

Abit BG-7
P4 1.6a@2.4ghz (150fsb)
4:5 Mem ratio (375DDR)
Cas 2.5,6,3,3

This was exactly as fast as it would go before i started burning in. I even tried running at 2,5,3,3 and Prime would fail after about 15 minutes.