Adding some ram...

[jsublm]

I've currently got a gig of ram and was looking to add more. My question is about mixing brands and timings.

This is my current ram: (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820141210) and it runs great.

I was going to buy another gig which is about $100, but I looked around and this ram: (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820142013) was available for $150. It's two 1gb sticks, which will up my system to a nice 3gb.



Is viking ram any good, or is it crap? I've googled some reviews from different sources and I haven't seen anything bad yet.

They're both 667, but the viking is 5300 instead of 5400. Is that... bad?

The viking's case latency and timings are slightly higher. Will that screw something up?

They're both different brands. Is that trouble?

I hear dual channel causes problems with different brands. This is probably a real amateur question, but is there a way to turn dual channel off - or could I stick the dual channel viking chips into the first two slots, and move the pqi into the third and the first two would function as dual channel?

And lastly, will my computer run slower by mixing these two brands (putting me up to 3gb) than it would run if I just bought one more stick of the same stuff I have now (putting me up to 2gb)?

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!




In case the links don't work, here's the specs:
pqi TURBO 1GB
Speed DDR2 667 (PC2 5400)
Cas Latency 4
Timing 4-4-4-12

Viking 2GB (2 x 1GB)
Speed DDR2 667 (PC2 5300)
Cas Latency 5
Timing 5-5-5-12

 

[AMDSCOrPiO]

It will work but make sure you set the timings according to the slower ram, faster ram wont have a problem going slower, also i noticed your current ram is 2.0v and it doesnt say for the other ram, you might wanna check that out

 

[jsublm]

About the 2.0v thing, I actually have it set to 1.8v in bios because setting it to 2.0v really screws up my system.

 

[jsublm]

lil help?

 

[dcc]

The timings are so different that I wonder if the Viking modules are even compatible with you motherboard. I would gohere and use their memory configurator and see if this module is one of the ones they list for you motherboard.

If you are going to run dual channel the modules need to be exactly the same, timings, latency, voltage... You will only be able to use two modules in dual channel.

You can disable the dual channel feature.

If you mix the 5400 and 5300 the 5400 module will only ran as fast as the 5300 module.

In the future it would help greatly if you include you system specs.

 

[zerodayATK]

i personally think its better not to mix... when iupgaded my gmom ram it was cheaper to just get 2 matching stichs for dual than to find ones that would match her dell ones

 

[AMDSCOrPiO]

to use dual channel you do not need the exact same ram, i have mixed 4 modules of all different speeds and timings and still got dual channel, it is recommended to have identical modules because some errors may occur but are rare.

 

[dcc]

As long as you match the density that's true...to an extent. Your performance will not match that of matched modules.

 

[jsublm]

The timings are so different that I wonder if the Viking modules are even compatible with you motherboard. I would gohere and use their memory configurator and see if this module is one of the ones they list for you motherboard.

If you are going to run dual channel the modules need to be exactly the same, timings, latency, voltage... You will only be able to use two modules in dual channel.

You can disable the dual channel feature.

If you mix the 5400 and 5300 the 5400 module will only ran as fast as the 5300 module.

In the future it would help greatly if you include you system specs.

Oh, sorry. My motherboard is a ECS C19a SLI, and I have a Celeron D processor.

Thanks for the memory config link! I tried it out, and all the modules they listed for my board started with "ECS". They also were all 533 modules. I also did a search for the module pair that was listed on newegg and upon clicking 'view' under compatible systems nothing happened (?).