db said:
well, the difference seems to be a
mere .07 gb - I wouldn't worry about
it.
however, depending on the bios, you
may be better off with identical ram chips.
Identical chips are always best; for sure. But it's not really a
requirement.
so instead of mixing the sizes like you
have now; you may see better performance
by simply having only the two 1 gig chips.
sometimes if the cpu really gets busy
and the demand is high, the computer can
stall because of the different sizes of rams
that are installed.
I think I dispute that. By what possible mechanism could a computer
"stall" because two different size RAM sticks are used? One stick or 4,
every but of RAM is but an address, the location of the address being
irrelevant. RAM has gotten fast, but not so fast that copper lengths or
address locations could ever bother it. It's just an address and nothign
close to any kind of linear search or anything to find a RAM address;
they're always ready to go.
The only problem with different chips would be speed capability and
mismatched specs. If two chips have different speeds, ALL will run at
the slower speed. And obviously you can't mix ECC and non-ECC, 2V and
3V, etc. etc. etc.. As long as the speeds match and they have the same
architecture, I always reuse memory sticks. This particular machine has
a 1 Gig and 2 512's. Yes, only 3 chips; it's legal on this machine. My
laptop has a 1 Gig and one 512; they have to be in pairs in that one.
Neither machine has ever had a problem in the now 6 years of growing
teeth they've had.
How would I create a "stall" if it can happen? I'd like to check it
out, because I've been wrong before, but ... I think I'm right. I do
everything from surfing to video editing and rendering, pretty RAM, pf
and disk intensive apps, and have never had a stall even with a one hour
video.
so unless the computer is for an analyst or
graphics designer or computer gamer,
it is unlikely you will ever need
more than 2 gigs of ram especially
in winxp.
Yes, 2 Gig seems to be the sweet spot with 3 Gig the max and reaching
for the point of diminishing returns. 4 Gig is pretty much useless
unless you're stuck with having to pair same size RAM. After 3 Gig
there is nothing to be gained that could ever be noticeable and little
to no advantage Iv'e ever heard of because so little of it is used.
therefore, my suggestion is to pull out
the 512 meg chips and only keep the
2- 1 gig chips installed.
I'd love to hear back whether it made any noticeable difference of any
kind. It just about couldn't, really.
Two 1 Gigs and two 512's makes 3 Gig, the best situation you could
ever want, really.
OTOH RAM is still cheap, so if it DID make a difference, it's at least
not a big deal to swap it out for another 1 Gig. But then it depends,
as you intimated in the beginning, what the machine is being asked to
do. It's entirely possible that nothing but the first bank or RAM would
get used unless there are some pretty intensive apps running. Well,
excuse me; more than a Gig would get used but not funcitonally. Windows
still attempts to use all RAM possible. That seems to be around a Gig
in my machine, excluding the times the pagefile get used, which is never
used unless I'm doing some serious video work.
I'd appreciate any enlightenment on the subject.
Twayne`
