Can mixing RAM with two different Mhz be dangerous/compatible?

Question

I have threee peices of RAM. One is 128MB of RAM 333Mhz, another 256MB 333Mhz, but then I have 512MB 400Mhz. Could I mix the 256MB with the 512MB?

Answer 1

It is not dangerous. The problem is that the slowest one will determine the speed for all the others to run at.

RAM often goes on sale and you might want to upgrade by buying a big chunk of faster RAM to replace those small slow ones. When Circuit City has a sale they give rebates so that you could pay about $20 for 512MB 533. You could toss the two smaller ones and pop in the new one and get a noticeable improvement.

Answer 2

Well despite his 15 years of experience, the last guy is wrong. If you put in a 512 and a 256, you will get 768, not 256. However as the other people said, running slower RAM with faster RAM will make them all run at the slower speed.

Answer 3

Yes, but the computer will ONLY recognize the lower ram. You HAVE to have the same amount of ram. i.e. 128 x 2 will get you 512 or 512 x 2 will get you 1 GB. If you mix the two 128 + 512 you will get 128. Also keep in mind that you can't mix-match ECC and Non-ECC, Unbuffered ram, they to have to be the same.

Miss matching ram will only slow your computers performance down and could cause more systems trouble down the road.

Answer 4

in most cases it will work because ive done it many times, the downside is that if one piece of memory is slower than the other they will all work at the slower speed but by anding the extra in the long run you should speed up the procescor a little bit

Answer 5

You can, you'll just be slowing down the faster stuff - if it works at all.

Answer 6

yes