[jeeplette]

I just bought 1 gig of RAM (2x512). I have two 256. My mother board will hold 4 ghz. And a 2 ghz processor(P4). I dont want to fry my pc. Is there a rough guide on the amount of RAM to use? Oh, my FSB is 800/533/400 mhz and I believe it has the ability to overclock all the time (no jumpers). I dont think it can be turned off. Please Help.

Edited by jeeplette, 10 May 2005 - 09:05 PM.

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is all the ram the same speed, example PC3200? as long as the 2 sticks of similar size are the same, you can get the full dual channel mode going by mounting the sticks in the correct slots.
if your board can support dual channel ram in all 4 slots, and its all the same speed, great, load it up.
overclocking may be built in, but does not have to be activated. to disable it, go into bios, find the "load optimized defaults" setting, and use it.
this will set up a default setting, so you may need to change any modifications you had done to the bios back.
alternatively, to make sure RAM speed is set to normal, go to that section of the bios, and set ram detection to "by spd" which will allow the board to determine the settings based on what the ram is rated to do.

[audioboy]

is all the ram the same speed, example PC3200? as long as the 2 sticks of similar size are the same, you can get the full dual channel mode going by mounting the sticks in the correct slots.
if your board can support dual channel ram in all 4 slots, and its all the same speed, great, load it up.
overclocking may be built in, but does not have to be activated. to disable it, go into bios, find the "load optimized defaults" setting, and use it.
this will set up a default setting, so you may need to change any modifications you had done to the bios back.
alternatively, to make sure RAM speed is set to normal, go to that section of the bios, and set ram detection to "by spd" which will allow the board to determine the settings based on what the ram is rated to do.

[jeeplette]

One of the Ram sticks (we already had in there)says Kingston ValueRAM (KVR 333/256) which we think is 2700 and the other one says it is Samsung 2100 (256MB DDR PC2100). We bought 2 new RAMs today which are AMPO PC 3200/512 MB. In the system information, it is showing 512MB RAM. If that makes sense, please let us know if we can use all of them. Thanks so much!

Edited by jeeplette, 10 May 2005 - 09:28 PM.

[audioboy]

OK, the 256 sticks are of different speeds than each other, and both of those are slower than the new 512 sticks you have.
in you use ram of different speeds, it will slow all the ram down to the speed of the slowest stick. also, since they dont all match, you will be stuck in single channel mode, which basically cuts your total FSB speed in half.
I cant remember the exact speed of pc2100 offhand, but if you load that in, you would have a total of 1.5gigs all running at that slower speed.

I would suggest loading up the two 512 sticks, in the appropriate slots to utilize the dual channel configuration (probably slots 1 & 3 or 2& 4- likely color coded also, so 1 stick in a green slot, one stick in a purple). this will allow you to maximize the speed of the ram, and use the full 800Mhz front side buss- definitely the better way to go.
1 gig of pc3200 ram should serve you well- thats what I use in my gaming rig.

[jeeplette]

Thank you SO much!! You have made a world of difference! You guys are so great! Now if I could just get a reply to my HJT log (for our other computer)...lol. Thanks again!

--Jeeplette =o)

[audioboy]

happy to help out. give them some time in the malware forums, they are always pretty busy, but I know they will get to your log as soon as they can.
a note on that- dont bump your log up, they use a system that looks at the post time, so that they help out on a first come, first serve basis.