Is there anything I need to know about DDR Ram?

[episodic]

I am building my first system.

I have this board coming:
ASUS A7V8X-X/LAN KT400 RTL

I have bought a single 256 meg DDR PC2100 Kingston Chip from a guy on the for sale area of the forum.

I've found another thread where someone is selling DDR PC2100 128 meg chip for 7 dollars. Can I get this too, or do the chips have to match? I had 384 of SDR PC133 ram in my old system, and it always seemed like a good number?

The specs at ASUS says this:
3 x DDR DIMM Sockets
Max. 3 GB unbuffered PC2100 / PC1600 non-ECC SDRAM Memory (PC3200 Max. to 2 banks only / PC2700 Max to 4 banks only)


What does the max to 2 banks and max to 4 banks mean (I did not get the faster ram, but was curious for the future).

I'm also getting the Applebred Duron 1.8 ghz. I have not found alot of information on this specific chip. Anyone seen any good sites on it's perforamance benchmarks? I found a few things on the 1.6 version.


Finally, the heat sink thing confuses me:

I got this one:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?E23762777
(Newegg)

I've seen heatsinks that come with the pad, and the way I understand if it has the pad, you don't use grease. I went to AMD's site and the information they have is all using the pads. If this does not have a pad, I've heard that Radio Shack's thermal paste is good. The way I understand the application is that I simply place a little thin coat over the little black square in the center of the processor, and that is it, is this correct?

I got this heatsink in particular for one reason, the reviews said it was easy to mount (and it was AMD compatible per newegg).

It is probably too late to ask now, but I ordered a Fortran 300w power supply that was listed as AMD compatible. I've seen alot of antec recommendations. 300w is enough I hope. I will have 1 Samsung harddrive, an ATI Radeon 9100, wireless pci nic card, cd writer, cd rom, applebred 1800, and that should be it (maybe a tv card in the future). If this won't work, let me know and I'll send it back and get another.

Thanks for any and all thoughts !

 

[mechBgon]

That is a nice clear set of questions First, you can mix & match different module capacities, no problem. For your motherboard, PC2100 DDR (or faster) would be fine. Steer clear of modules that are "Registered" and you should be ok.

The more banks of memory the motherboard has to address, the harder its job, so that's why it'll impose a speed ceiling if it's got lots of banks of memory installed. One module might be either one or two banks depending on its design. If it has 8 chiplets on each surface, then AFAIK that would always be a two-bank module. If it has eight chiplets on one side, it's probably single-bank. Exceptions are out there, I'm sure.

I made a photo guide (even a video clip) to help with heatsink installation: link If you view the video clip, hopefully your anxieties will vanish... it's not very hard. Just put something below the screwdriver to intercept it if it slips (a credit card would be good, nice tough plastic) and pick a screwdriver that fits well.

The pads are a melt-to-fit item so they're only intended for one use. For that reason, some high-quality thermal grease is a good purchase, just in case you need to remove the heatsink for some reason. Radio Shack's stuff used to be good, but their new stuff is thin and ...strange. :Q Your best bet is some of that Coolermaster stuff that's made by Shin Etsu, for longevity, or maybe some Arctic Alumina or another of the Arctic Silver lineup. Yeah, your target is the core in the center of the CPU, the dark raised shiny part. If there's a slight excess of thermal grease, most of it should spooge out the sides, but you don't need a lot.

The Fortron/Source PSUs have a good reputation and that should work fine for the load you have planned.