need help with ram

reply to post by tetriswoooo


So is your system posting and using 6Gb now? Does it say 6Gb on your Bios post screen, and does Windows say 6Gb on your "basic information about your computer"?

Back in the old days with 8Mb or Ram was uber, you had to have the same type of ram in all the slots. With the newer systems and the different type of ram, you shouldn't need to match sticks of ram other than make sure the specific stick is compatible with the motherboard. (ie. DDR2 DDR3 etc..) Now, keep in mind, this is the way it's Now, keep in mind, this is the way it's supposed to work.

Different ram can have different speeds and timing so all your ram will run at the slowest speed. Some motherboards also have specialized ways of handling ram and thus designate "banks". Motherboards with an NVIDIA chipset have a way to access two banks of RAM simultaneously but the banks may have two slots each so you would have to Install one chip in each bank instead of two sticks in one bank. With some systems this can cause weird issues and performance problems if you have two different types of RAM in one bank. Also, you sometimes have to enter into the motherboards BIOS after installing new RAM to allow the motherboard to update what it has. You normally don't have to do anything more than enter into the BIOS,then save and exit.
Another thing to keep in mind is that not all motherboards can handle 16mb of RAM. To give you an example, I have a motherboard that can only support 16mb of ram. So if I have two 8mb Pieces of RAM installed I'm already maxed even if I have two more RAM slots on the board. As mentioned in another post, 32bit Versions of Windows can only see up to 4GB. There is a program called X-Fast Ram that can actually use the ram that windows doesn't see as a ram drive if you want to try and actually get some use out of extra RAM.

I would also recommend the crucial website as the tool they have to check for the type of ram your motherboard can use is very useful. Not only can it tell you the type, but also the maximum RAM amount you can have. Although they recommend their own RAM, you can usually use the stats on the RAM they recommend to find any brand you want. I would caution using cheap or generic RAM. While this ram may be compatible with the motherboard, I have found many problems with generic ram and windows with anything from being unable to install the OS, to random crashes and freezes that seem to have no known cause.