Mix 667MHz and 800MHz ram?

Technology and Gaming
#1

I currently have 2x1GB DDR2-667 RAM Dual-Channel installed and have an E8400 Core 2 Duo (FSB=1333MHz). As I understand it, it’s best for your RAM’s speed to be at least half the FSB speed of your CPU (in the case of DDR2).

Now, I can’t really find the same set of RAM I currently have in my local PC store, but they do have a 2x1GB DDR2-800 RAM Dual-Channel set (Corsair XMS2, just like my current set), so can I just mix this with my current set?

I also just ordered Windows 7 Professional 64bit OEM, so 4GB of RAM seems a nice step up from 2GB :stuck_out_tongue:

#2

Anyone? I’m pretty sure you can, only the faster RAM will be clocked to the slower one.

Still, it’d be nice if anyone could confirm this, I’m planning on picking up my new HDD tomorrow and I could also buy the new RAM.

#3

You’re right, but you should pay more attention to the brand, some brands really don’t like being mixed together. It’s also better to have the same number of chips on each stick, a double sided stick working together with a single side is a pretty bad setup.

#4

Well, they’re both from Corsair, and they’re even from the same line (XMS2).

#5

You should have no problems then, you might even be able to clock both at 800mhz (manually in the BIOS)

#6

Okay thanks, I’ll buy myself some new RAM then :slight_smile:

#7

IIRC, the slower ram should be in the first slot, for the record. This was an issue I had with my moms old computer.

#8

“You should have no problems then, you might even be able to clock both at 800mhz (manually in the BIOS)”

no, he shoulnd’t be able to oc ram with 667 mhz to 800 mhz without any problems if the ram has no or no good extra cooling

if you really want to oc then try it carefully

sorry for the wrong quote, im still figuring out how this works

#9

Hit the reply button. Quote is used for when you are replying to multiple people, then the last person you want to quote, you hit reply. Play with it for a bit to figure it out.

#10

I’ll keep that in mind :slight_smile:

I don’t plan on overclocking it, I don’t mind that the new RAM runs slower. 667MHz is good enough for my CPU (FSB 1333MHz). The benefits are mainly the double RAM :stuck_out_tongue:

#11

thanks for the help :slight_smile:

if you don’t want to oc then you will be fine with 2 different rams if they’re from the same manufacturerer and type and the faster one will run at the speed of the slower one then (both at 667 mhz).

#12

667mhz is pretty slow though, you might notice some lag.

#13

FUUUUUUCK !!! I just cleaned out my PC and installed the extra 2GB and ever since then it keeps rebooting every time I try to boot Windows or a Linux Live CD. I’ve uninstalled the extra RAM for now and my PC works fine, but obviously I’d like to put this newly-bought RAM to good use.

The BIOS recognised the 4GB of physical RAM but said that only 3.2GB was available and 800MB was appropriated, I understand that 32bit programmes can’t make full use of the 4GB RAM but does that include the BIOS? Although, it’s probably 16bit itself.

I’ve gone through the manual and BIOS and can’t find anything wrong. It should work. I left my original Corsair XMS2 2x1GB DDR2-667 in bank 1 (orange slots), and installed my new Corsair XMS2 2x1GB DDR2-800 in bank 2 (black slots).

EDIT: These are the specs for my RAM;

My current Corsair XMS2 2x1GB DDR2-667 set has 4-4-4-12 (printed on the RAM), this is what CPU-Z has to say;

Don’t know what the difference between JEDEC 1&2 is.

My new Corsair XMS2 2x1GB DDR2-800 set has 5-5-5-18 (printed on the RAM), I did notice that my new RAM runs at 1.9V whereas the original runs at 1.8V, is this a problem?

Please, if anyone can help I would very much appreciate it.

On top of that, when I started WinXP after removing the extra RAM I got a “Delayed Writing” error for my new external HDD. I just finished putting everything I wanted to keep on this HDD so that I could reformat my old HDDs and do a clean install of Windows 7. And now I might’ve lost everything on it!

#14

Tough luck, it sounds like a classic chipset-ram incompatibility, the chances of that were pretty low considering the other pair is compatible.

Have you tried booting with only the new ram?

#15

No, I’ll be trying that tomorrow, but I don’t think that’s the problem. My BIOS did recognise the full 4GB RAM.

I can’t wholly rule out the possibility that my PSU can’t keep up. Could anyone see if this is enough:

Antec 550W PSU (worked so far)
Asus P5W DH Deluxe
Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz
3xSATA HDD
Asus HD3870 512MB GDDR3
X-Fi Xtreme Music
3x80mm fans
DVD reader and DVD burner
2x1GB DDR2-667 RAM

So far my PSU has served me well, and I refuse to believe that the extra 2GB could be too much. But I can’t rule it out, so what do you guys think? Is it good enough?

I’m going to bed, feel free to make suggestions, I’ll try some more tomorrow :slight_smile:

#16

Your PSU should be more than fine.

I make my 430W psu take more load sometimes.

#17

I’ve installed only 1GB of the extra RAM and now my PC still runs fine with 3GB, but everytime I add the 4th GB it becomes unstable.

Still, if anyone knows what the problem could be, it would mean a lot to me.

#18

I did it! I managed to install the 4GB of RAM and install Windows 7 64 bit. I had to change something in my BIOS, I knew about this setting but I didn’t want to do it because it means I can’t install a 32 bit OS. I wanted to dual-boot between WinXp (32bit) and Win7 (64bit), but I guess this’ll have to do.

Thank goodness I managed to solve this, it was driving me nuts :stuck_out_tongue:

#19

yes, a BIOS-update often helps a lot and mostly kills errors like them you’ve had. i wasn’t here a few days so i’ve just seen the problems you had.

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