Memory Upgrading and General Memory Question

[Allusion5275]

I just inherited an older system from a friend who is moving and I want to bring it up to modern standards so we can use it as a secondary gaming machine.

Currently it has 1.25 GB of RAM on board in 4 DIMMS

On the first bank of DIMMS there are 2 dimms of GEIL Dual Channel PC3200 512 MB w/ CAS 2 3 3 6.

On the second bank are two dimms of Micron PC3200 128MB DIMMs with CAS 3 3 3 8.

My first question is. Is the system better off with all 4 sticks in even though they are different CAS settings?

My second question is about upgrading. I want to end up with 2GB of RAM on the system. Am I better off going with 2 addition 512 MB DIMMsof the same sort of RAM (GeiL 2 3 3 6) or am I better off tossing all the RAM and getting 2 1GB DIMMs.

If I do go with the new DIMMs, what sort of CAS am I going to be better off with? I do not plan to overclock this memory at all.

System is a Dell 3 GHZ P4

Luke

[Zimbo]

Hey there,

Is the system better off with all 4 sticks in even though they are different CAS settings?

To be honest I would throw the 2 x 128 chips in the dustbin, your system will probably run faster without them in.
Basically the RAM adjusts to the speed of the slowest chip, that is why it is always a good idea to have ALL the chips the same make/speed e.t.c

My second question is about upgrading. I want to end up with 2GB of RAM on the system. Am I better off going with 2 addition 512 MB DIMMsof the same sort of RAM (GeiL 2 3 3 6) or am I better off tossing all the RAM and getting 2 1GB DIMMs

If you can get an extra 2 x 512 DIMM's of the same speed (freq/bus) then it would work out a lot cheaper.

Alternatively you could be certain about the speeds by purchasing 2 brand new 1GB dimms of the same spec. However if you go this route make sure you check your manual to see if your board supports 1GB chips.

If I do go with the new DIMMs, what sort of CAS am I going to be better off with? I do not plan to overclock this memory at all

If you do choose the 2 new chips then I would just check your motherboard to see what the maximum CAS and bus freq that is supports and just purchase the chips that match it. That way you can be certain you are running the board at full potential.