Athlon XP, NForce 2 dual-channel memory question

[CuriousMike]

I have an MSI nForce2 K7N2 motherboard with a mobile XP.

I currently have a single stick of PC3200 memory in the board.

I'm looking to add another gig of memory. The motherboard says it supports "dual channel" memory; as a matter of fact, the physical motherboard layout seems to have 2 of the memory slots colored differently than the 3rd slot, and those 2 are physically closer to each other.

My question: Will I not reap the benefits of "dual channel" memory because I'm using the 3rd memory slot ?

 

[Killrose]

Not untill you populate one or two of the other slots. Right now with only one stick you are not in "Dual Channel" mode. Not sure if that was what you were asking

 

[WobbleWobble]

Dual channel benefits on the nForce 2 were minimal. If you need the money, I wouldn't worry about losing dual channel ability.

However, you can get dual channel using 3 slots. What you need is 2x256 and 1x512MB. Alternatively you can also go 2x512MB and 1x1024MB. So you need the sum of the two other sticks in the third slot.

Edit: I think I read your post wrong. You already have a stick and want to get another stick of RAM. Both sticks need to be the same size and do need to be installed in the designated dual channel slots, which as you noted are usually the same color.

 

[CuriousMike]

I have one stick of 512 in the third slot right now.

I will be adding two, 512mb modules into the other two slots.

When I add the two new moludes in "dual channel" mode, would the third stick of ram "turn off" the dual-channel capabilities ?

I think you answered it - my 3rd stick of ram needs to be 1 gig of size, to match the two 512mb sticks.

 

[CuriousMike]

FYI:
It didn't work out.

I bought a 2-pack of Mushkin PC3200 RAM.

Adding it to my existing Kingston ValueRam, my machine booted with 1.5gigs.

Doing a quick Prime95 test to make sure all was good, within seconds I got errors.

I swapped over to Microsofts memory test, and got errors.

So, I took out one of the new sticks, and re-tested. No problems.
Wanting to verify I pulled out the bad stick, I put the bad stick back in, and took out the other new stick.

No errors.

So, one stick of new memory with my old stick of memory caused no issues.

Taking out my old stick of memory, and just putting in the two new sticks had no issue.

Only when all three were installed did I get memory issues.

I futzed around with memory settings in my BIOS ( set CAS to 2.5, as spec'd by the Mushkin, tried setting FSB to 166, etc.) I didn't make a difference.

These 3 sticks of ram do not play well together.

 

[CuriousMike]

Interestingly enough, a friend with an NForce 1 mobo had a similar experience trying to add a third memory stick.

I know the NForce 2 is a much improved chipset, but it's surprising that just having 3 sticks of ram would cause this issue.

 

[StormRider]

I have an Athlon XP 2700+ MSI K7N2 Delta-L and 3 sticks of Kingston PC2700 (all using the same Infineon chips) and mine works fine. I'm running at a 166 Mhz FSB and only at PC2700 speeds. It's probably my sticks are all the same brand and using the same chips.