Mixing memory brand and size

[hkssupra69]

Hey guys, i know i can trust people here to give me the knowledge i need. I want to add more memory to my system which current has 1GB of memory running dual channel. i have 2 more banks free and i want to add another 2 gigs. Now what I'm wondering is, this new memory will be a different brand and size, can i add this and run dual channel as a whole? or will it just end up being a single channel 3GB of ram setup? Do I even need more memory? I've noticed lag when I'm running my HDTV tuner and thought more memory would help the cause then say a new processor. Any advice is much appreciated, thanks guys.

 

[JustaGeek]

Please read this thread regarding the use of more than 2GB RAM.

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2068758&enterthread=y

Some MB's (like mine...) have trouble handling more than 2 sticks of RAM. Mine seems to be working fine, although occassionally I get a cold boot failure, have to hit reset and then it boots up fine. It started happening after BIOS update, but the 600 series chipset from NVidia has a problem running 4 sticks at 800MHz.

If you add an extra pair of matching sticks of RAM, identical in frequency/timings/voltage values to your original 2 sticks, you should be fine. But it is not guaranteed, since the "subtimings", or "Advanced settings" might be different for different brands of memory.

If the frequency/timings/voltage values are different, you might have to go with the lower frequency (e.g. 667MHz), but higher voltage (e.g. 2.2V), hoping that the lower voltage sticks don't "fry".

Dual channel should not be a problems for 2 matched pairs.