Get Installed RAM Type

Question

I am trying to get the type of RAM thats installed on the PC. I was able to find a code example but it does not really work, it shows me always Unknown for DDR2. It also always returns 0 for DDR3.. words fine for SDRAM

edit: should not that its suppose to work on XP.

    public string RAM_Type()
    {

        int type=0;
        var searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher("Select * from Win32_PhysicalMemory");
        foreach (ManagementObject obj in searcher.Get())
        {
           type = Int32.Parse(obj.GetPropertyValue("MemoryType").ToString());

        }

        switch (type)
        {
            case 20:
                return "DDR";
                break;
            case 21:
                return "DDR-2";
                break;
            case 17:
                return "SDRAM";
                break;
            default:
                if (type == 0 || type > 22)
                    return "DDR-3";
                else
                    return "Unknown";
        }

    }

Answer 1

.NET does not provide a way to get the type of memory I know.

The existing methodology in .Net only returns an equivalent value, but the conversion to string must be done manually following this guide: Win32_PhysicalMemory class

I have made a specialized class for this purpose, where I translate the codes to their respective names

using System;
using System.Management;

namespace Hector
{
    public class RamInfo
    {
        public static string RamType
        {
            get
            {
                int type = 0;

                ConnectionOptions connection = new ConnectionOptions();
                connection.Impersonation = ImpersonationLevel.Impersonate;
                ManagementScope scope = new ManagementScope("\\\\.\\root\\CIMV2", connection);
                scope.Connect();
                ObjectQuery query = new ObjectQuery("SELECT * FROM Win32_PhysicalMemory");
                ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(scope, query);
                foreach (ManagementObject queryObj in searcher.Get())
                {
                    type = Convert.ToInt32(queryObj["MemoryType"]);
                }

                return TypeString(type);
            }
        }

        private static string TypeString(int type)
        {
            string outValue = string.Empty;

            switch (type)
            {
                case 0x0: outValue = "Unknown"; break;
                case 0x1: outValue = "Other"; break;
                case 0x2: outValue = "DRAM"; break;
                case 0x3: outValue = "Synchronous DRAM"; break;
                case 0x4: outValue = "Cache DRAM"; break;
                case 0x5: outValue = "EDO"; break;
                case 0x6: outValue = "EDRAM"; break;
                case 0x7: outValue = "VRAM"; break;
                case 0x8: outValue = "SRAM"; break;
                case 0x9: outValue = "RAM"; break;
                case 0xa: outValue = "ROM"; break;
                case 0xb: outValue = "Flash"; break;
                case 0xc: outValue = "EEPROM"; break;
                case 0xd: outValue = "FEPROM"; break;
                case 0xe: outValue = "EPROM"; break;
                case 0xf: outValue = "CDRAM"; break;
                case 0x10: outValue = "3DRAM"; break;
                case 0x11: outValue = "SDRAM"; break;
                case 0x12: outValue = "SGRAM"; break;
                case 0x13: outValue = "RDRAM"; break;
                case 0x14: outValue = "DDR"; break;
                case 0x15: outValue = "DDR2"; break;
                case 0x16: outValue = "DDR2 FB-DIMM"; break;
                case 0x17: outValue = "Undefined 23"; break;
                case 0x18: outValue = "DDR3"; break;
                case 0x19: outValue = "FBD2"; break;
                case 0x1a: outValue = "DDR4"; break;
                default: outValue = "Undefined"; break;
            }

            return outValue;
        }
    }
}

---

private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    label1.Text = Hector.RamInfo.RamType;
}

Answer 2

There are some known issues with this value and some OS's. It also would appear that it depends on the memory itself and not all memory has the information encoded in its EEPROM.

One alternative could be to query the SMBIOS directly.

Also here is a program (although in c++) that you might be able to help diagnose your issues as well as get ideas of how to get at the information you are looking to retrieve.