Hey guys, I'm adding some Ram to my system and was wondering why I should have the same size in each of my two banks. My system (Dell Dimension 4400) only takes two chips. I have 256MB in it now and wish to add 512. Does it really matter if the sizes are different? If so, should I put the big one in the first bank? And finally, do I need to change anything in the BIOS or system somewhere for caching, etc. Or, do I just plug the thing in and go. BTW, I run Win XP Home edition. Thanks, Jay
Size need not be the same. Probably makes no difference which stick is in the first bank. You won't need to change anything, though the recommended size of your page file will increase to 1.5X of your physical ram total (I use 2X).
I was in the same situation as you, with two slots only, I had two 256 chips in for a total of 512 RAM. I took out one 256 chip and dropped a 512 Chip in the slot and boosed my AMD 1800 to 768 RAM. Chip prices have been up and down 512 chips appear to be about 50 dollars with rebate, but a couple of months ago they were 29 bucks with rebate. I am not beyond dropping another 512 chip and going over a gig of RAM. Anybody up around a gig of RAM on an AMD 1800 processor, have any comments on that?
No comment on your AMD, but before you splurge on more RAM, you might want to see how much you actually use in your applicaitons (Task Manager). Could be that you won't see any benefit at all from more RAM. Then again... BTW, where did you find 512 for $29?... That sounds like a good 256 price.
just go for in another 512, shouldn't be any probl at all. http://store.yahoo.com/joyluckshop/51sdram168pi.html
Not 100% sure... but I know that if you put PC133 ram in a PC100 MB, the system may not or will not recognize all of the addition. Probably a good idea to not mix speeds....