two rams running at different speed (mhz)?

Question

hi, my motherboard is intel d101ggc which supports 2 gb of ram. currently i have 512 ddr ram running at 333 mhz, but i plan to add another 1 gb of ddr (400+ mhz) in the other empty slot. can you please tell me if the system would support it. two rams running at different speeds...to be precise. and also, if it supports, will the total memory be 1.5 gb? thanks

Answer 1

i have tried a lot of mix and match....small size SDR with large SDR..SDR with DDR..slow ddr with fast ddr...at all times mix and match didn't work... in your case the slow one would probably slow the other one down as well.though the total memory size of 1.5 gb is not really a problem. but it's better to add memory according to the power of 2..e.g 2 to the power of 10=1024 or 2^12=4096 and so on.that's how ram works internally when it comes to memory organization.

Answer 2

http://www.intel.com/products/motherboard/d101ggc/index.htm

Your board supports 333 or 400, so adding a 400 it will still only run at 333. It's ok ot mix different speed ram but they are only as fast as the weakest link. And your right that you'll have 1.5 total.

The board will work with ram over 400 but it will 'downgrade' the ram and only run at 400 because that is the max.

Answer 3

If they are running at different speeds, then all hell is going to break loose. Most motherboards will attempt automatically clock down the faster RAM if it can handle the slower speed. But yeah, if they end up running at different speeds you are going to have problems.

Answer 4

Memory will always run at only one speed. BIOS makes sure of that and will default to that of the slowest module. If the 1Gb module does not work at DIMM2 slot, try it at DIMM1 and put the 512Mb at DIMM2.