Just a question on some RAM I purchased today. Basically I have an emachines 5260 with 4 slots for RAM. I opened my pc up today and saw I had 2 x 256mb sticks in two of the slots. As I said, there are 4 slots on the board and two of the slots have white clips to hold in the RAM and the other 2 slots have black clips to hold the RAM in. So the two sticks that were in were in the two slots with the white clips. So I went to my local shop and asked for another 2 sticks of pc3200 256mb RAM to put in the slots with the black clips because I read somewhere it's best to pair up the RAM. The guy told me he had no 256mb sticks but it would be ok to put 1 stick of 512mb into one of the slots to make up 1024mb and it doesn't matter if they are not paired up. So I put the RAM in and it shows up ok, as 0.99gb of RAM. I thought my pc would run faster with this extra RAM but to me it seems the same. I've ran spyware scans and converted .avi files to vob but I don't see any change in speeds at all. My question is, should the RAM be paired up to work or is it working and I just can't see it? My pc specs are emachines5260, p4, 2.93ghz, was 512RAM, now 1024RAM. I've ran the computer id program that I got here on AD, and when I go into the "spd" tab and check the slots, the only dofference is the RAM I had in is CAS#Latency 3.0 and the new RAM is 2.5 Glad of any suggestions on this. Thanks Sandisk
I'd buy a 1GB dual channel kit. 512MB in dual channel is about as good as 1GB in single. Buying another stick of 512MB won't work unless you get an exact match which is unlikely. Make sure you get a dual channel kit.
Ok, so the way it is at the minute is, I've 2 sticks of 256mb by one manufacturer and 1 stick of 512 by a different manufacturer so if I get another stick of 512mb the same as the 512mb I've just bought, I should notice the difference then? How do I know if it's dual channel? All the RAM I have installed is pc3200 ddr, just that the 512mb stick is a different manufacturer Thanks Sandisk
some manufacturers make good RAM and others do not. And i would consult the PC manual as far as waht your max limit is and how you should have it configured. I was always told that the larger amounts should go in the first slot. then the smaller one's in the second. But your manual or the company who made the computer will be able to tell you. They should also be able to tell you if you motherboard supports dual channel mode. If it can then that is what i would buy, and you may have to go into the BIOS to make sure it is in dual channel mode a well.
Thanks for that info. I didn't actually get a manual with my pc but I'll check the manufacturers website for a manual to my model of pc. Thanks Sandisk
