Mixing Memory

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Just now I got my older 512mb ddr33 stick off my brother to put in my pc, making a total of 1gig of ram in my system. The other stick is a geil ddr400 stick (just a normal one with a blue heatspreader). I put the memory sticks into both blue slots on my mainboard and my mainboard reports that they are running in dual channel.

The mainboard also reports that the ram is running at 166 dual channel, & I want to see if I can't do stepping on the other module to run it at 200mhz, could anyone explain to me in this area of what to do (with older sd ram boards I just shoved them in and some times it would run slower and sometimes at the faster speed the other module ran at, be that faster or slower).
 
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When you mix RAM, which isn't really very great, it forces the faster RAM to slow down for the slower RAM. So you've got both running at 166mhz (333) and the timings themselves are most likely skewed atm. I guess you could try slowly either overclocking until it's 400, or setting their speed ratio to 200 (400). There's no guarantee that the slower RAM will work at the same speed, or timings, as the faster one.
 
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You need to buy new ram. May I suggest 2gb for future-proofing purposes.

OVERKILL ftw o/ -
 
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While two Gigabytes of RAM would be great for the latest and greatest of the games and for advanced video/image editing, he doesn't need to go out of his way at the moment to upgrade, especially considering his 5200. Generally you should suggest it when someone is willing to spend some money and upgrade or is configuring a computer but doesn't have the final specs. All he needs to do atm is correct his ratio and/or memory frequency. Good imput though, Codeman.
 
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yeah, thats true, i had my computer with 256mb of ram and integrated video (emachines computer with intel accelerated graphics, my old computer) and i tried running halo on it at minimum specs and resolution and it lagged horribly, so i added in just another stick of 256 and i seen massive improvments, to the point where i was running it at 1024x768 and high specs without any lag. So i would definately have 2 gigs of ram in my computer if it was for gaming, but since you have a computer not built for hardcore gaming i would go no higher than 1 gig, im pretty sure Smith would agree with me there too.

100% agreed ;) - Smith|
 
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Where settings should I play around with in my bios? Will I have to change my dram voltages to obtain ddr400 speeds?.
 
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It'll probably be labeled as Memory Frequency with 5 different modes. For you, it'll probably be Auto, 100, 133, 166, and 200. Double them all for the real speed. I don't know if you'll have to up the voltage or not, depending on how good the new RAM (slower RAM) actually is.
 
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So your trying to overclock your memory pretty much then? And as for voltage, im not sure if you should screw with the voltage settings, im not familiar with this field but it could damage your memory if you go too high or low, so be careful.
 

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