Could installing new memory drain your computer's power?

Question

I have a 500W power supply and the following setup:

Four hard drives - 800G total
AMD BE-2300 X2 Athlon chip on ECS Nforce6 motherboard.
Radeon 2600XT video card.
sound card
IDE controller card
1G memory in 2 DIMMS (2G total.)

With the above setup, everything works fine.

But if I install 2 more 1G memory DIMMs, the system becomes unstable. (Eventually windows goes into blue screen.)

The memory I installed is the exact same model and make as what was previously in there. I'm wondering if there simply isn't enough power for the new memory. Is this possible? Does memory take up a lot of power?

My power supply is "Antec" brand.

Also, I currently have 2G, and the upgrade pushes me to 4G.

I just unplugged 2 of the hard drives, the sound card and the IDE controller card and everythign seems to work fine, which leads me to think it was the power supply. Odd.

Answer 1

Not having enough power isn't a likely option.

Some motherboards, regardless of the available slots have an upper limit on RAM.

Also, from what ur saying, u currently have 1GB, in a 2x512MB configuration.

It's possibly that the speed of your 512MB sticks is lower than the speed on your new sticks, resulting in the new speed downgrading to match the older speed, in an attempt to run Dual-channel.

Another possibility, is that if ur using 2x1GB sticks, and 2x512MB sticks, your motherboard might just not like that configuration.


possible solution:

Try removing the 2x512MB sticks, and installing JUST the 2x1GB sticks, and see if u can detect a noticeable difference, I think you will. If so, then I recommend you ditch the 512MB sticks, and just stick with the 2x1GB sticks. 2GB of ram, is much better than 1 GB of ram, even though it's seemingly not as good as 3 GB.


Good luck!

Answer 2

I can answer your question, but I can't solve your problem with the very limited information you supplied.

Adding 2GB of additional RAM to a 2GB system would not over tax a 'real' 500 watt power supply.

Now for the 'gotcha'.

The power rating of most power supplies is fiction at best. Yes, the power supply may put out 500 watts total, but that doesn't mean that the current is on the right bus.

If you examine 2 different power supplies, both claiming to be 500 watts, from a cut rate supplier and a top of the line one, you might notice that the cheap one only supplies 5 amps to the +5v bus, whereas the expensive supplies 20 amps to the +5v bus. 5 volts is what your memory needs, so if you have the exact specs for each of the buses of the power supply, you can check what the actual power of the different buses are.

What this means is that if you have a cheap power supply that isn't really putting out the necessary (stated) power to the memory hungry computer, it may become unstable.

If you know you have a top of the line power supply, then you are ok. The best way to test whether or not it's the power supply is to buy a 'good' top of the line power supply and test it on your system.

If it doesn't fix it, at least you will have a great power supply that you can trust and will allow you to expand your system with whatever you want.

If it does fix it, then you know that you 'had' a cheap power supply.

If you have a cheap power supply, your disks may be draining all the power from your power supply, but more than likely, they aren't since they are hooked to the 12 volt bus, not the 5 volt bus that the memory needs.

There are a few other reasons why this might be happening.

e.g. bad capacitors hooked to the additional memory slots, bad memory cards, etc.

Try swapping the 2 original memory sticks with the 2 new ones.

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

It is possible as each memory stick requires power to run. But that is only if you're already running at the edge of your PSU.

Your 500W PSU seems to be more than enough for your system. Unless your PSU is very old and is about to reach the end of its lifespan, I think it should be ok.

When running multiple memory module, all module runs at the same frequency (in MHz) and clock latency, sometimes called CAS latency (in CL, like CL5-5-5-12, for example)

Is your new memory same speed and CAS latency as the previous ones? If it has faster frequency, is ok because it will automatically run at the slower frequency.

Furthermore, the more RAM stick you use, the more stress you put on your memory controller. Populating all 4 DIMMs puts alot of strees on the memory controller, although problem usually comes in overclocking rather than normal usage.

Anyway, it could also be faulty RAM.

Try the 2 new RAMs without the old ones, and see what happenes. If it still fails without the old ones, the most probably the problem is with your new RAM.

Answer 4

Your question is slightly ambiguous. once you assert memory stick do you propose a usb key, or memory card? If that's what you're touching on then that would not certainly improve your gadget memory. the girl from CyberTechHelp.Com is optimal, you ought to install RAM, this is diverse from memory enjoying cards/sticks in that they are put in on the motherboard. My advice is to take your pc to computing device fix place and ask for a RAM improve. **384MB shrink is in laptops, 128MB onboard expandable to 384MB with a 256MB RAM chip.

Answer 5

try getting more RAM, maybe your comp isnt fast enough anymore with all the new memory it has to work with

Answer 6

you need a 64bit OS to run 4GB memory