RAM Frequency not at 1333 MHz

[Marwan91]

Hi, I recently bought a SoDIMM DDR3 ram for my Samsung NP305E4A-A01 laptop. I installed the chip and it worked just fine. The problem is, however, that I now noticed that the frequency of the RAM is always between 674-665 MHz. This is happening despite the fact that the CPU, an "AMD A4-3305M," supports RAM frequencies up to 1333 MHz. I am fairly certain that the motherboard is not a part of the problem and I'm certain that the new memory clocks on 1333 MHz since I specifically asked for it to sync nicely with the CPU.
I thought the problem could be from the older RAM, a stock Samsung 4GB RAM, so I removed it and tried again-- the frequency remained around the same levels.
Quick online searching pointed towards playing with the BIOS or updating it. Samsung's BIOS update utility said that I have the latest firmware "05qu" and that I cannot update it.
I feel like there should be no reason why my laptop is unwilling to run at full speed.
Advice?

 

[michaelhall]

go into bios and manually set the frequency to your desired speed

 

[Damn_Rookie]

Where are you seeing that speed being reported? Due to the way memory works, and it being double data rate (DDR), the speed you often see reported is only half of the effective speed of the memory (in this case ~666 MHz, which is half of 1333 MHz). Your RAM is most likely running at the correct speed already (1333 MHz).

 

[michaelhall]

Where are you seeing that speed being reported? Due to the way memory works, and it being double data rate (DDR), the speed you often see reported is only half of the effective speed of the memory (in this case ~666 MHz, which is half of 1333 MHz). Your RAM is most likely running at the correct speed already (1333 MHz).

haha i forgot about that lol x2... "doh"

 

[Marwan91]

The BIOS does not allow me to change any values.
@Damn_rookie I'm watching the frequency through Piriform's Speccy. So what you're saying is that it does run at full speed? If so, what program do you recommend for watching my hardware?

 

[Damn_Rookie]

If you're using Speccy, and it's showing ~665 MHz, yes, your memory is running at the correct 1333 MHz speed. There's nothing wrong with your monitoring program, it's showing the value correctly (due to how DDR memory operates), so I'm not going to recommend a different one as they'll display it in the exact same way (CPU-Z certainly shows it this way).

If you'd like further confirmation that what you're seeing is normal, check the screenshots on piriform's Speccy webpage; the first one shows memory operating at 530 MHz, approximately half of 1066 MHz, the speed it is actually running at). Alternatively, do a google image search for speccy and you'll see yet more images with the memory speed appearing to be half of what it should be.

 

[Marwan91]

Thanks you!

 

[Damn_Rookie]

No worries, glad to help