Which ram slots?

Question

I have a pair of 512 running at 667mhz and a pair of 1 gb running at 513.Which slots should I use and how do I know which slot is which. And what is the reasoning behind using one slot over another. The 512 are from dell and 1gb are from Corsair

4 slots, dual channel, each stick in a pair is exactly the same. dimension e521, vista hom,e premium

Answer 1

Ok, sounds like you have 4 RAM slots...

The speed at which they run is based upon the clock of your computer, which you can change, but you shouldnt.

With 4 Ram Slots you probably have DUAL CHANNEL.

What you need to do, is make sure each CHANNEL matches the exact other channel of RAM to ensure that all is properly installed

Example:

#1 Slot far left, 512 Mb stick

#2 Slot next to #1, 1 GB stick

#3 Slot first on the right 512 MB stick

#4 Slot next to first right slot 1GB stick...



So Essentially if your RAM slots look like this...
1 2 3 4
|| || || ||
a b a b
The first needs to be matching the Third, and the Second matching the 4th...


I recommend the 512 be in the Starting a position, because smaller amounts of ram run a bit faster for the OS>


If you are only going to have 2GB of ram so that your pc uses only the SAME ram, you need to put 1gb in #1 spot, and 1GB in #3 spot...

Basically there are four slots for ram, but there are 2 sets of 2 slots, each set has to have the same ram, in the same slot, does that make sense?

If the 1GB ram is faster than the 512 sticks and newer, it wont matter because faster ram is backwards compatable, so you should be able to use all that ram just fine.

Answer 2

This is a good question. RAM is very touchy. Eventhough you have 667Mhz it is defaulted down to your slowest RAM Mhz, you would see an increase in proformace with canging out your 533Mhz. The only way to really tell what kinda RAM you are suppossed to have is to look up the specs of the MB (mother board) and you can find them at the manufacturer's WWW just type in your Model of the computer.
Also, for using one type over another RAM. This is a good rule of thumb, If you are not a gamer you would not know the diffrence. If you are than you know that timing is everything. Let's say you have a set up that has 2GB of RAM using 4 @ 512 sticks, your ms (miliseconds) would be let's say 8ms and you have another 2GB set up with 2 @ 1GB sticks, your ms let's say 4 (all other varilbes aside) the diffrence is the distance the data has to travel to get to the RAM it might not look much to us, but to an electron it looks like the grand canyon.

Answer 3

Im not a pc wizard, but I have put in ram before, and it worked! Im like you--didnt know which slot--so I just put them in next to the original ram then checked my system to see if it recognized it. In windows XP click on start, control panel,system,general. Where it tells you how much ram there is--it should be working after you put it in and the number has increased by the amout you added. If not put it in a different slot, then check again.

Answer 4

depends, are they dual channel? with two identical sticks of ram the motherboard activates dual channel , if they are not identical the system can not adjust for voltage and other differences that are caused by ram of different specs.