mismatch ram

hey I was just wondering, I bought another stick of ram (1gb) and I already had 512 mb would it be ok to use both sticks would it count for a gig and a half or no? And I think my mobo maybe dual channel. It is the emachines w3400 please help and thanks for everyones time in advance
Answer #1
well if you use different sticks it will work most likely, but sometimes theres a small chance it wont bacause of motherboard compatibility issues. Dual channeling is there if your using two sticks of the exact match such as speed, manufacturer etc but it will work in single channel if they are different.
Answer #2
i face a similar problem. i have two slots now and i was wondering whether should i stick my old 512mb ram with the new 1gb ram. i heard it’ll crash and spoilt your ram if its unbalanced. a lil’ help here?
Answer #3
ram is fairly inexpensive, the best way is to buy 2 new 1gig sticks and toss the original 512 stick
that will double your ram speed on a dual channel board
but you can just add the new stick and it will run at the speed of the original stick
and it will cause no damage unless the sticks are incompatible, but that will only cause crashes
Answer #4
Just place the 1GB stick next to your other stick. that way it will run in single channel mode and it wont cause any problems (if it works)
However, take into consideration the speed.
if your 512mb is pc800 and your 1gb is pc 677 then you’ll have to lower the clockspeed in your bios or the 1gb chip might not work or in worst case it might even break
Answer #5
ram is fairly inexpensive, the best way is to buy 2 new 1gig sticks and toss the original 512 stick
that will double your ram speed on a dual channel board
but you can just add the new stick and it will run at the speed of the original stick
and it will cause no damage unless the sticks are incompatible, but that will only cause crashes
im still on DDR400 PC3200, which is fairly expensive then DDR2 and the latest ones. not gonna change, yet. i have both of them coming from the same manufacturer (Kingston) so i guess its safe right? gee, still dont dare to do it.
well if you use different sticks it will work most likely, but sometimes theres a small chance it wont bacause of motherboard compatibility issues. Dual channeling is there if your using two sticks of the exact match such as speed, manufacturer etc but it will work in single channel if they are different.
thanks, very informative…
Answer #6
Wow, do you guys have it all wrong. Dual channel works best with matched pairs of the same mb and mhz but as long as they are the same size and speed they will function as dual channel. If you put two sticks with one having a lower mhz value than the other your system will automatically run them both at the lower speed. Running an 800mhz stick at 677mhz will not hurt it at all. When it comes to mis-matches what you really need to look for is the memories ns value. Putting a stick of 512mb 400mhz 60ns memory along with a 512mb 400mhz 70ns can cause problems.
So what it comes down to for you, is as long as your two sticks are of the same ns type you can put them together as single channel 1024+512=1536mb at which ever has the lowest mhz speed if they are even different. You cannot damage memory very easily, you really have to do some drastic stuff to it to damage it. Even running 60ns with 70ns will not hurt the memory, just your PC’s performance. Over clocking or forcing a stick into the wrong type slot, now that can damage your memory.