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Adding Ram?

T

Tommyboy

n00b
Joined
Jan 2, 2008
Messages
11
Hi

I have a HP pc 7170n and have a few questions on adding ram

it has 2 512 PC4200 installed

When adding new ram do i need to get only the PC 4200 type or can i use PC 5300 or something else

also it has 4 memory slots so could i put 2 more 1 gb in the empty 2 slots and then have 3 gb total, or do they all need to be the same

Thanks
 
It's not a good idea, but it is possible, as long as it's the same type. The types of RAM are, excluding obsolete RAM, DDR, DDR2, DDR3. There were some older PC numbers, but those don't matter anymore. Both the PC 5300 and PC4200 are DDR2, so you can mix them.

Your RAM bus will run the RAM as fast as your slowest* stick of RAM. So if you have 1gig of PC4200 and install 2 gigs of PC 5300, your system will see 3 gigs of PC4200.

So if you haven't bought the RAM, don't waste your money on the faster speed, unless you only use the faster speed RAM.

I hope that helps.

Edit: my bad, I did mean slowest.
 
Friend of mine has a Gateway computer with 512MB of PC4200, then he upgraded to 4GB of PC5300 without issues, funny thing is he could not find PC4200 modules of ram around so bought the 5300 instead.
 
I think daragon meant your memory bus will run at the speed of your SLOWEST stick of memory. Also, if you have dual channel and mismatch speed or capacity, it may not operate in dual channel mode. The other thing to consider is compatibility. Some sticks are finicky and don't like other sticks even if they are the same speed and capacity. A few years ago I had 2x512 PC3200 Kingston and added 2x512 PC3200 Mushkin, and for whatever reason they didn't like each other at all and I got constant crashes. Returned the Mushkin, replaced it with more Kingston, and no problems. Go figure.

The moral of the story is you CAN mismatch memory speeds/capacities and it CAN work, but generally your system performance will take a hit and it may be a crapshoot in regards to compatibility.
 
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