RAM Question

[iamaelephant]

Hi folks. My motherboard is an MSI K8N Neo4-F which has 4 DDR DIMM slots, two green ones and two purple ones. I currently have 2 sticks of 256mb DDR333 and one stick of 512mb DDR400 memory. When installing this memory I noticed that it wouldn't show up as more than 768mb no matter which slots I installed the memory into, which I presume is just something to do with dual channel systems (which I know nothing about).

Next week I'm going to buy another identical 512mb stick. My question is, will I be able to run the two 256mb stick and two 512mb sticks in dual channel mode? Can someone please explain to me (or redirect me to a website) what dual channel actually means, and what advantages there are? I also plan to run the 2x256mb DDR333 sticks at DDR400 speed (I've done it with these sticks before so I know they can handle it).

Which slots will I need to install each stick into? Do the 2x512mb sticks both go into green slots, or does one go into green and the other purple?

 

[13black]

The manual for the motherboard should tell you. For my mobo each set of slots that are the same color are a channel. If you put the two identical 256 m sticks in either the two green or the two purple slots they should work in duall channel. My motherboard has 4 slots and can handel up to 3 gig of ram. If I want to use all 4 slots, slots 3 and 4 can only handel 512 meg single sided modules. I can use 3 one gig sticks though. My manual has a chart to tell you what combinations will work in dual channel.

 

[unfalliblekrutch]

If you can't get it to detect all the memory with 3 sticks, I have a feeling it'll have even more trouble with 4 sticks. AFAIK, this isn't a dual channel issue, it's a compatibility issue