Another Computer Problem. This Time RAM.

[Astral Fridge Magnet]

I recently replaced my hard drive and thought while I'm at it get another 1 GB of RAM. However When I previously had 512 MB, it now reads 256MB, when I should have about 1500MB. Any possible explanations? As far as I know I have the right type of RAM. But I am going by faith in the salesman who sold it to me. I brought along my motherboard manual so he could see what I needed.

According to the manual I need DDR SDRAM DIMM modules and either PC2700/DDR333 or PC2100/DDR266.
The box he sold me just says it is DRAM Memory 1GB Dimm DDR 333. As far as I can tell that is the right sort.

Can anyone verify please?


PS. OK. RAM problem solved. It had to do with the order of the RAM in the slots. I now have the full 1500 MB RAM.

Thanks for all your help.

[arela]

goood - i think 256Mb is on the edge

[Astral Fridge Magnet]

I was told this on another forum:

you may be operating at 1/2 speed on the memory bus - because you don't have it installed in pairs!


True or false?

My manual says that the configuration I have it in is permissable.

[garyb]

not half speed, but not as efficient as pairs.

since you have done it this way, fine. does it work well?(i bet it's fine)

next time you can go the route of pairs.

[Astral Fridge Magnet]

not half speed, but not as efficient as pairs.

since you have done it this way, fine. does it work well?(i bet it's fine)

next time you can go the route of pairs.

It works, but I don't notice any real improvement in CPU.


However, I went to my local computer shop and asked the their opinion. The sales assistant ( I don't know how reliable his knowledge is) said having pairs only applies to dual channel motherboards. To my knowledge mine isn't a dual challenge. Does that make sense to you? Is what he said true?

Thanks

[Neutron]

Most motherboards with 2 sets of 2 different colored ram slots are dual channel, if all teh slots are together and the same color, then they are not dual channel (especially if there is 3 of them)

more ram is still better!

[astroman]

...It works, but I don't notice any real improvement in CPU. ...

that's correct - for us regular folks the improvement is only measurable, not noticable.
I'd expect a 15-20% improvement at best as Ram is just a small part of the system... there's the harddisk, the CPU cache, etc.
Usually people start to notice only from a 30% difference on

cheers, Tom
(admittedly not an expert in this domain - I don't care much about it as most is just marketing talk with few substance)