User:Gordon/Memory Wall Maintenance

Problems

• Many of the memory tester motherboards on the "memory wall" are in bad shape, with bad slots, missing or loose RAM clips, etc.
• The mixture of motherboard types may no longer reflect the stream of incoming RAM, as well as Free Geek's priorities in testing it.
  • We have pounds (literally) of SDRAM in Tardis, (factcheck) last I checked. A lot of SDRAM still comes in, but it is being used less and less in build (check this fact with George). We already reject PC100 and the SDRAM keeps piling up. There is too much to sell in the store and the asking price isn't great. Thus, we may actually want fewer SDRAM testers and possibly to start rejecting some or all 256MB sticks in favor of keeping 512MB sticks.
  • DDR volume is increasing, as is DDR2. DDR3 is just beginning to trickle in very slowly, but when we get it would be nice to sell for $$$ in the store whatever we don't keep for infrastructure.

State of the Motherboards, October 2009

At the beginning of October 2009, I took stock of the motherboards on the memory wall.

board	capacity	status	RAMBUS	SDRAM	DDR	DDR2	DDR3	proposed replacement	RAMBUS	SDRAM	DDR	DDR2	DDR3
1	RAMBUS 4 slot	OK	4					none	4
2	DDR 4 slot	2 slots marginal			4			DDR 4 slot			4
3	DDR 2 / SDRAM 2 slot	OK		(2)	(2)			none		(2)	(2)
4	DDR 4 slot	OK			4			none			4
5	DDR 4 slot	OK			4			none			4
6	DDR2 4 slot	OK				4		none				4
7	SDRAM 3 slot	3 slots marginal		3				DDR3 board					3-4
8	DDR 2 / DDR2 2 slot	OK			(2)	(2)		none			(2)	(2)
9	DDR 4 slot	runs all as DDR266; reports incorrectly			4			DDR 4 slot			4
A	SDRAM 4 slot	1 slot bad		3				DDR2 4 slot				4
B	DDR2 4 slot	OK				4		none				4
C	DDR 3 slot	2 slots marginal			3			DDR 4 slot			4
D	DDR 2 / SDRAM 2 slot	OK		(2)	(2)			none		(2)	(2)
E	nonexistent	immediate replace						DDR2 4 slot				4
F	DDR 4 slot	OK			4			none			4
G	SDRAM 4 slot	2 slots marginal		4				SDRAM 4 slot		4
TOTALS			4	10(4)	23(6)	8(2)	0		4	4(4)	24(6)	16(2)	3-4