I pulled some ram from a machine I replaced & noticed a 2nd label on top of
the one that said "Warranty Void if Removed"
The label in question said PC2100. I went ahead & peeled it off &
underneath, it said PC2700.
Is this common practice?
What? To void your warranty just to see what a sticker
says?
No, most people would leave the sticker on there. ;-)
You didn't tell us anything about the sticker. Is is an
official looking, branded sticker from a major manufacturer,
or just some generic thing you could buy, by the roll
yourself and slap on your dog if you wanted to call it
"DDR"?
Point being, there is nothing we can conclude for certain
about one sticker, let alone two. We could guess, for
example we could guess that at the time they were only
making memory capable of at least PC2700 speeds, and their
only mistake was to put the PC2700 label on when it could
end up confusing people who don't understand that it is
better to buy PC2700 memory for a PC2100 system, than PC2100
memory for a PC2100 system('s need, spec).
Memory sellers could provide SPD timing tables for each
product (if the seller even knows that table), but for the
general public who doesn't realize PC2700 is backwards
compatible, such a table might even be more confusing, more
cost to support... vendors really don't want to have to
provide pre-sales tech support just to sell a single memory
module, their margins on these things are often extremely
small to begin with.
Why would someone labeled to make it look slower than it was?
Because it's not really "fast" or "slow" they're labeling
for, it's to get the human holding it to think it's ok for a
system that needed PC2100 memory. That is, that the seller
(or labeler), "intended" for it to be acceptible at PC2100
speed, too, but whether it really is still depends on the
overall stability of the system it's being placed in,
besides the variable of the memory module itself.
Should it work ok in a Mobo that calls for PC2700 DDR?
Thanks-
No, it might work fine at PC2700 speed, or it might not. We
cannot assume one way or the other and unless the seller's
product page is archived or other sales documentation
supports it being PC2700, you have no reason to expect it to
run as PC2700 even though it "probably" does.
In other words, you'd have to try it, run extensive tests to
determine if it's stable at the intended PC2700 speed.
Beyond that, you may as well just pretend you didn't see two
stickers at all, since testing memory for anything other
than the intended, labeled speed as sold, is always a matter
of testing and qualification rather than presumption. You
might see if you can read the SPD table and whether it's
programmed for PC2700 timings, but if a generic module even
those might be questionable and still requiring testing to
validate for any given use.
