I needed to determine how much memory could be added to a Windows 10 system. I didn't know the model of the motherboard in the system, so I used a Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line (WMIC) to determine the motherboard manufacturer and model. To run a WMIC command, you can open a command prompt window.
C:\Users\Public>wmic baseboard get manufacturer,product,model,version Manufacturer Model Product Version Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. 970A-DS3P To be filled by O.E.M. C:\Users\Public>
From the output of the WMIC command I could see that the manufacturer was Gigabyte Technology Co. and the model number was 970A-DS3P. To determine the amount of memory already in the system from the command prompt, I issued the systeminfo command and piped it's output into the find command to see just the memory currently in the system.
C:\Users\Public>systeminfo | find "Total Physical Memory" Total Physical Memory: 16,349 MB C:\Users\Public>
I could see the system had 16 GB of memory in it and the manufacturer's specification page for the 970A-DS3P motherboard stated the motherboard could support up to 64 GB of memory, but according to the product specifications page of the 970A-DS3P manual provided by the manufacturer, it can only support a maximum of 32 GB of memory. That pages also has the following information on memory speeds supported:
Support for DDR3 2000(O.C.)/1866/1600/1333/1066 MHz memory modules
* To support a DDR3 1866 MHz (and above) memory, you must install an AM3+ CPU first
According to the Crucial Memory Compatible Memory for GIGABYTE GA-970A-DS3P page, the motherboard can accomodate a maximum of 32 GB of unbuffered memory.
Slots: 4 (2 banks of 2)
Max Unbuffered DDR3 SDRAM: 32GB 240-pin DDR3 DIMM Banking: 4 (2 banks of 2)
The motherboard manual showed that 4 memory slots were present on the
motherboard labelled from right to left on the motherboard diagram as DDR3_1,
DDR3_3, DDR3_2, and DDR3_4. To see whether there were four memory modules
of 4 GB each or two memory modules of 8 GB each in the motherboard, I issued
the command wmic memorychip get capacity and then
wmic memorychip list brief.
C:\Users\Public>wmic memorychip get capacity Capacity 8589934592 8589934592 C:\Users\Public>wmic memorychip list brief Capacity DeviceLocator MemoryType Name Tag TotalWidth 8589934592 Node0_Dimm1 24 Physical Memory Physical Memory 1 64 8589934592 Node0_Dimm3 24 Physical Memory Physical Memory 3 64 C:\Users\Public>
I could see that there were two memory modules of 8 GB each already in the system. The user's guide states:
The four DDR3 memory sockets are divided into two channels and each channel has two memory sockets as following:
Channel A: DDR3_2, DDR3_4
Channel B: DDR3_1, DDR3_3
To get further details for the memory, I issued the command
wmic memorychip list full.
C:\Users\Public>wmic memorychip list full BankLabel=Node0_Bank0 Capacity=8589934592 DataWidth=64 Description=Physical Memory DeviceLocator=Node0_Dimm1 FormFactor=8 HotSwappable= InstallDate= InterleaveDataDepth= InterleavePosition= Manufacturer=Kingston MemoryType=24 Model= Name=Physical Memory OtherIdentifyingInfo= PartNumber=9905471-078.A PositionInRow= PoweredOn= Removable= Replaceable= SerialNumber=71168A10 SKU= Speed=800 Status= Tag=Physical Memory 1 TotalWidth=64 TypeDetail=16512 Version= BankLabel=Node0_Bank0 Capacity=8589934592 DataWidth=64 Description=Physical Memory DeviceLocator=Node0_Dimm3 FormFactor=8 HotSwappable= InstallDate= InterleaveDataDepth= InterleavePosition= Manufacturer=Kingston MemoryType=24 Model= Name=Physical Memory OtherIdentifyingInfo= PartNumber=9905471-078.A PositionInRow= PoweredOn= Removable= Replaceable= SerialNumber=77168A10 SKU= Speed=800 Status= Tag=Physical Memory 3 TotalWidth=64 TypeDetail=16512 Version= C:\Users\Public>
Other wmic memorychip commands that can be used to obtain details on the memory in a system are shown below.
C:\Users\Public>wmic memorychip get BankLabel,DeviceLocator,MemoryType,TypeDetail,Capacity,Speed BankLabel Capacity DeviceLocator MemoryType Speed TypeDetail Node0_Bank0 8589934592 Node0_Dimm1 24 800 16512 Node0_Bank0 8589934592 Node0_Dimm3 24 800 16512 C:\Users\Public>wmic memorychip get banklabel, manufacturer, partnumber, speed, MemoryType, devicelocator BankLabel DeviceLocator Manufacturer MemoryType PartNumber Speed Node0_Bank0 Node0_Dimm1 Kingston 24 9905471-078.A 800 Node0_Bank0 Node0_Dimm3 Kingston 24 9905471-078.A 800 C:\Users\Public>
The part number for the existing memory was 9905471-078.A. The Passmark Memory Benchmarks page for Kingston 9905471-078.A00LF 8GB had the following information for that memory part number:
Kingston 9905471-078.A00LF 8GB
Description: PC3-12800, 1.5V, 1.35V , CAS Supported: 6 7 8 9 10 11
Other names: Kingston 9905471-078.A00LF
Memory First Benchmarked: 2016-12-29
The description states that the memory module is PC3-12800, which equates to DDR3-1600 according to the Wikipedia DDR3 SDRAM modules table.
| Name | Chip | Bus | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | Module | Clock rate (Mhz) | Clock rate (MHz) | Transfer rate (MT/s) | Bandwidth (MBB/s) |
| DDR3-1600 | PC3-12800 | 200 | 800 | 1600 | 12800 |
You can also obtain some information about a system's memory using the Microsoft Windows Task Manager application. You can start the Task Manager by hitting the Ctrl-Alt-Del keys and seleting Task Manager. When it opens, select the Performance tab and then click on Memory , which will provide a display like the one below.
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References