Mismatched RAM

Thanatos

Hey, am I going to fuck up a five-year-old Dell desktop if I mismatch the RAM? It'll probably be three sticks of the same size.

Alternatively, will I fuck it up by having two sticks of one size, and two sticks of another size?

RiemannLives

Thanatos wrote: »

Hey, am I going to fuck up a five-year-old Dell desktop if I mismatch the RAM? It'll probably be three sticks of the same size.

Alternatively, will I fuck it up by having two sticks of one size, and two sticks of another size?

First off, I seriously doubt you will fuck it up. You might render it unable to boot until you remove the new ram but actual damage is very unlikely.

For desktops, if you look up the exact model number of your motherboard online there are almost always docs describing what the supported RAM configurations are. For a laptop getting the model of the motherboard is more of a problem but the info might be on the laptop manufacturers website.

Failing that, just check that not only the size but the speed and timing on the ram sticks match and give it whirl.

urahonky

No. You can ban me if it breaks your laptop. :P

Satsumomo

Worst thing that can happen is that the computer doesn't turn on because of RAM incompatibility, other than that, it will work.

This PC I'm posting from has a DDR-333 stick and a DDR-266 one. Runs smooth.

RiemannLives

Satsumomo wrote: »

Worst thing that can happen is that the computer doesn't turn on because of RAM incompatibility, other than that, it will work.

This PC I'm posting from has a DDR-333 stick and a DDR-266 one. Runs smooth.

And it almost certainly runs all your ram at DDR-266 speed.

Satsumomo

Yup, good thing is that the timings matched on both, except for CAS, and I run it on the slowest one (3).

Dunadan019

So long as the motherboard supports the ram you are adding it will be fine.

HOWEVER, ram will run at the lowest common MHZ supplied. so if its one stick of 800MHZ and a stick of 667, the Ram will all be accessed at 667. so long as your mobo supports both 800 and 667 MHZ ram that is.

if your computer doesn't support, the result will be that either the computer emits a beep code about bad or unsupported memory or it doesn't register the memory that you added. neither one will permanently damage your computer.

also, the size of the sticks generally doesn't matter except if your computer has an upper limit on the size of memory that can be used.

matt has a problem

If you have 4 slots, they're usually color coded, two of one color, two of another. If you have two sticks of the same size, put them in the same color. If you have three sticks of the same size, two in one color, one in the other (obviously). If you have two sticks of two different sizes, one in each color. If you have three sticks, two of one size and one of another, put the two same size sticks in one color, and the different size in another. If you have three sticks, each a different size, you can only use two.

If the slots aren't color coded, the motherboard manufacturer hates you. They'll be numbered 1-4. Some manufacturers want matching sticks in 1,2 and 3,4, others want 1,3 and 2,4. Getting it wrong won't hurt anything, you'll either get a RAM error, or some of it just won't show up when it posts. Just switch them around until everything shows up.

Thanatos

matthasaproblem wrote: »

If you have 4 slots, they're usually color coded, two of one color, two of another. If you have two sticks of the same size, put them in the same color. If you have three sticks of the same size, two in one color, one in the other (obviously). If you have two sticks of two different sizes, one in each color. If you have three sticks, two of one size and one of another, put the two same size sticks in one color, and the different size in another. If you have three sticks, each a different size, you can only use two.

If the slots aren't color coded, the motherboard manufacturer hates you. They'll be numbered 1-4. Some manufacturers want matching sticks in 1,2 and 3,4, others want 1,3 and 2,4. Getting it wrong won't hurt anything, you'll either get a RAM error, or some of it just won't show up when it posts. Just switch them around until everything shows up.

These are 1,3-2,4. I can tell because they've got two sticks of 256MB in them right now. The sticks I'm considering putting in right this moment are additional 256MB sticks (I wanted to do one in each). In the future, I was considering putting in either a 1GB stick, or two 512MB sticks.

matt has a problem

In that case just add the 256 meg sticks in the two open slots, they should work fine. Adding in pairs always works better, they run in dual channel. When you do decide to add more, if you're only adding a gig, I'd say get the 2x512 sticks, and put them in the 1,3 slots.

Dunadan019

Thanatos wrote: »

matthasaproblem wrote: »

If you have 4 slots, they're usually color coded, two of one color, two of another. If you have two sticks of the same size, put them in the same color. If you have three sticks of the same size, two in one color, one in the other (obviously). If you have two sticks of two different sizes, one in each color. If you have three sticks, two of one size and one of another, put the two same size sticks in one color, and the different size in another. If you have three sticks, each a different size, you can only use two.

If the slots aren't color coded, the motherboard manufacturer hates you. They'll be numbered 1-4. Some manufacturers want matching sticks in 1,2 and 3,4, others want 1,3 and 2,4. Getting it wrong won't hurt anything, you'll either get a RAM error, or some of it just won't show up when it posts. Just switch them around until everything shows up.

These are 1,3-2,4. I can tell because they've got two sticks of 256MB in them right now. The sticks I'm considering putting in right this moment are additional 256MB sticks (I wanted to do one in each). In the future, I was considering putting in either a 1GB stick, or two 512MB sticks.

your computer may be old enough that it only supports up to a certain amount of ram. for example, it might only be able to have 4 512 MB strips for a total of 2.048 GB. you have to check the original specs on the motherboard. simply look for the big white numbers somewhere below the ram most likely that tells you what kind of mobo it is and then google that to find the specs.

if you add too much ram, it won't permanently damage anything but it will make it not turn on.

Thanatos

matthasaproblem wrote: »

In that case just add the 256 meg sticks in the two open slots, they should work fine. Adding in pairs always works better, they run in dual channel. When you do decide to add more, if you're only adding a gig, I'd say get the 2x512 sticks, and put them in the 1,3 slots.

I wanted to add one 256MB card to two different computers, rather than both into one.

Dman

Thanatos wrote: »

matthasaproblem wrote: »

In that case just add the 256 meg sticks in the two open slots, they should work fine. Adding in pairs always works better, they run in dual channel. When you do decide to add more, if you're only adding a gig, I'd say get the 2x512 sticks, and put them in the 1,3 slots.

I wanted to add one 256MB card to two different computers, rather than both into one.

Go ahead and do that. It should work fine and worst case it doesn't boot and you take it back out.

Thanatos

Actually, I've reconsidered, and I'm just going to add them both into one. More likely to see a performance boost that I can use to convince my boss to buy more RAM.

Thanks, guys.