Balanced RAM?

Hello everyone,
Recently I went to CircuitCity to buy a 1 gb card for my Toshiba laptop. A salesmen then came up to me and started telling me that I had to have my RAM balanced and that if I bought a 1 gb card then I had to buy another 1 gb card to "balance" it out. I think he was just trying to make a sale but I dunno. Anyone have any input?

Thanks

 

Well he is kinda right. If all you want is 1GB, then take the 1GB stick and run. It would make more since to buy 2 512mb sticks, and put them together so that duel channel mode is enabled. Duel channel mode will increase the speed of the ram slightly, and is worth it if you have 2 sticks that aren't in the mode yet.

The salesmen probably meant by "balancing" it out, that you can get the ram into duel channel, if you bought another 1GB stick. You need to use the exact same pair of sticks to enable duel channel mode.

And, if you're running vista, then it would be best to get 2GB as vista is a ram hog and you will see an improvement with 2GB rather than 1.

 

I already have 2 512mb sticks and I was going to buy two 1gb sticks. But he didn't even ask if I was going to buy two or what I had. The way he talked, your computer would not function if you didn't have two of the exact same sticks. That's what I was wondering since I wasn't exactly sure if you needed the same size in both slots or not. I mean, they sell laptops with only 512mb right? He also said that it would void my Toshiba warranty if I installed it myself. This I am currently looking into to see if my warranty covers that.

Thanks for the reply,
Nexus06

 

How old is your laptop?

Your computer should still work if you put the 1Gb stick in with the 512mb sticks, unless the 1GB stick you're buying isnt supported by your pc.

Do you know what kind of ram you have in there right now? And what kind are you getting? I need to know the latency (pc 3200, pc 6400 etc)

 

All I really wanted to know was if you HAD to have the same amount of RAM in both slots. My laptop is only about 6 months old. The RAM for it is pc 4200. But like I said, I was just curious because I had never heard anyone say that you needed the same amount in both slots.

Thanks,
Nexus06

 

You can put a 512 or 1gb together as long as there both pc 4200. like Waymon3X6 said "its best if you use the same size as its runs better in dual channel."

 

your Mainboard may not be dual channel capable but

with DDR or even sdram in one slot you can have 1GB in bank 0 and in bank 1 512MB to a total of 1500MB (1.5gb) of ram (memory)


if your mainboard isnt dual but your ram is dual then you can do the unbalanced banks too

it would be dumbing it down if both were dual and you did that

with vista best IS 2GB of memory..one gig just for the vista OS

XP runs best on 512MB or above and doesnt really get any better above it but i do it at 1 gb

if you are going to use different sizes always use the larger one in the bank 0 slot..thats the one closest your processor in a desk top and in a laptop that the one on the bottom.. why? because your computer if its video controller is ran off the main board it uses bank 0 to share memory

good luck

 

Thanks for the input!
I think I will get two 1gb sticks and replace the two 512mb I have now. Thanks a lot for the help!

Nexus06