adding memory

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nvaccaro

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Aug 6, 2008
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I have 2 gig of Crucial Ballistix 2GB DDR2 800 Memory and wanted to get 2 more gigs. I went to order more and it was discontinued on newegg. This is the memory that I have in my computer currently http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146565
I was wondering what memory I should get that would work. I dont have a lot of money to upgrade this but can find some if I need to get a certain type of memory.
 
Any DDR2 memory will work as long as you keep the speeds and timings of all the sticks within the rated settings for the slower kit. In other words, if you were to get a kit of DDR2-800 with timings of 5-5-5-15, you'd be able to run that kit along with your current one as long as you kept all the sticks at 5-5-5-15 or higher while running them at DDR2-800 speeds.
 
The crucial is 4-4-4-12 and the G.Skill is 5-5-5-15. If you run them all at 5-5-5-15, you'll be safe for sure. That means you'll have to loosen up the timings on your crucial ram that's already in your system. Are you going to notice the difference in every day use? Probably not, unless you're doing benchmarking.

ALSO, and this may be a bigger issue than the timings...The crucial says it runs at 2.2v, whereas the G.Skill runs at 1.8-2.0v. If your crucial can run at 2.0v you'll be fine, but if you buy the G.Skill and have to lower voltages to 2.0v and you start having system instabilities because your Crucial ram isn't getting enough voltage, that wouldn't be good.

These would probably be better because they have the same timings and the same voltage specs as your current ram:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148076
 
rittia1962 said:
ALSO, and this may be a bigger issue than the timings...The crucial says it runs at 2.2v, whereas the G.Skill runs at 1.8-2.0v. If your crucial can run at 2.0v you'll be fine, but if you buy the G.Skill and have to lower voltages to 2.0v and you start having system instabilities because your Crucial ram isn't getting enough voltage, that wouldn't be good.
Click to expand...

Neither the timings nor the voltage should be much of an issue. It would be safe to run the G-Skill memory at 2.2v, and it may even be possible to match the Crucial RAM's timings when the voltage is raised to that level. Even if not, the sticks should work find in tandem, although it may take a bit of fiddling around to get the best stable settings.
 
Point being, that while the G.Skill may run at 2.2v (and they probably will), it's not within their specification so IF by chance something happens, he wouldn't be covered. Also, there's no guarantee that the G.Skill will run at 4-4-4-12. Again, it's probably likely, but not set in stone.

Regardless, that's why I pointed him towards the ballistix tracers because he should be able to just pop those in and go without fiddling around with anything and without having to loosen the timings on the original ballistix sticks.
 
rittia1962 said:
Regardless, that's why I pointed him towards the ballistix tracers because he should be able to just pop those in and go without fiddling around with anything and without having to loosen the timings on the original ballistix sticks.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I know. I'm just a bit iffy about recommending Ballistix since there have been a ton of problems with them recently.
 
Zero82z said:
Yeah, I know. I'm just a bit iffy about recommending Ballistix since there have been a ton of problems with them recently.
Click to expand...

I can agree with you on that. That's why I'm running G.Skill now. I had problems with two sets of ballistix. However, there's a lot of people who are running them without issue.

The optimal situation would be to just grab a 2x2gb set from G.Skill, Corsair, etc...and try to sell his two ballistix sticks that he has right now.
 
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