adding memory

[david1234]

I have a couple extra sticks of pc3200 400mhz memory.

Can I put those into system (it takes 800mhz pc6400), without causing any real problems?

-David

[Paul H]

If it accepts them, it will slow down the bus to 400Mhz. Is that an improvement? Call up the Task Manager, (CTRL-ALT-DEL if using XP), when running your apps and check out the boxes at the bottom of the window. Try it before and after you add memory. If performance improves go with it.

[david1234]

That's what I wasn't sure about- if it slowed down all the installed memory, or just for the slower memory.

[GKusnick]

Even if it's just the slow memory that runs slower, it still means that apps that used to always run in fast memory now have a chance of running in slow memory instead. So if you have adequate memory already, then adding in this slow memory just for the heck of it isn't going to help and will probably hurt.

If you're really short on memory and performance is suffering because of it, then adding in the slow memory might help, but it would probably still be better to get some new memory that actually matches your system specs.

[Opus4]

I think you would have to check how your motherboard handles the memory. I was under the impression that all the memory ran at the same speed -- whatever you could get it to run successfully at, including slowing it down more if needed. I think you are referring to DDR2 memory, but over the past week, I went through the process of adding 2 more 512MB sticks of DDR400 memory to the 2 that were already there & had to slow it all down to DDR333 to get all 4 to work w/o crashing. If you want the most memory running at top speed, you may want to consider dumping all that you have & install 2 larger modules -- 2 GB wouldn't have been much more than the 1 GB that I bought, for example. I don't know, though: maybe I just have a poor mb in terms of memory support and/or maybe DDR2 works better with 4 modules.

- Andy

[david1234]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Even if it's just the slow memory that runs slower, it still means that apps that used to always run in fast memory now have a chance of running in slow memory instead.

that makes sense- I was trying to be cheap (got the extra gig for free). I have a gig now in vista, and while everthing runs, I do occasionally run past my actual memory. I'll hold off until I get a chance to pick up the faster stuff.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by david1234

that makes sense- I was trying to be cheap (got the extra gig for free). I have a gig now in vista, and while everthing runs, I do occasionally run past my actual memory. I'll hold off until I get a chance to pick up the faster stuff.

I should also point out that Most PC3200 was DDR and PC6400 is DDR2.....now there were SOME PC3200 DDR2 but that was very very early and very very rare.....