Upgrading Memory question

[Mordraken]

I have an ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe motherboard, and currently have 1 GB of Corsair TWINX PC3200 DDR400 MHz Dual Channel memory (2X512 sticks). I wanted to upgrade that, and bought this:

 

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=15556&vpn=VS1GB400C3&manufacture=CORSAIR

 

Which I thought would be the same (400MHz, PC3200, 184 pin).

 

However, the stuff I bought was DDR1 while the stuff I have is DDR2. When I dropped the new RAM into my Motherboard, the PC would not boot (not even to the video card).

 

What are my options?

 

- Should this work (i.e. Stick 1 of 512MB DDR2 in DIMM_A2, Stick 2 of 512MB DDR2 in DIMM_B1 and one stick of DDR1 1 GB in DIMM_A1)

- Do I have to have all "LL" DDR2 chips?

- Will 2 chips of DDR1 also work? (i.e. if I buy another chip of the one I just bought from NCIX - will that work if I replace the existing DDR2 memory)?

 

Thanks in advance for any help!

[bigbuck08]

Send the stuff you just bought back. If you want to upgrade go by some 2x1GB.

[Mordraken]

My M/B only has 3 slots (3 GB max) and I have 2X512 MB. Are you suggesting I just get 2 X 1 GB (and replace what I have)?

 

Is the stuff I got no good for this M/B?

[Mondoman]

Mor, you seem to be a bit confused as to what modules you have. Your motherboard should use only DDR modules, not DDR2 modules. They are physically different, and a DDR2 module *will not fit properly* in a DDR slot, and vice versa. Thus, I'm quite sure that all the modules you have are DDR modules, not DDR2 modules. Also, "LL" just means "low latency" and is just a marketing label sometimes used to distinguish lower-latency RAM; don't worry about it.

 

Now, in theory, the module you bought *should* work in your system. However, in practice, you are facing at least two issues:

1) Each additional RAM module you install on your system means that the control signals from the memory controller to each module are weakened, as the same signals are split among more modules. This means that problems running 3 modules at once are not uncommon. You can try to solve this issue by boosting the DIMM voltage and/or memory controller voltage a bit (one or two "notches"), if the BIOS on your motherboard allows that.

2) The pair of modules you started with are made from different type/quality chips, both because they were made at different times, and because your new module is a lower-quality "Value Select" module, while your original pair are high-quality "XMS" modules. There are often problems mixing such different modules in one system, especially with older memory controller designs such as yours (see one of the Forum sticky threads).

 

Thus, my suggestion would be to (a) return your Value Select module, (b) buy a pair of good-quality 1GB DDR-400/PC3200 modules (e.g. a TWINX pack), and © sell your current 2x512MB TWINX modules on ebay. You'll end up with 2GB, which should be plenty for WinXP.

[RJLeong65]

Mordraken,

 

In addition to what's been said in this thread, some of the early steppings of the nForce2 Ultra chipset can only handle two sticks of memory at the full DDR400 speed. Filling up all three DIMM slots on such motherboards would force you to reduce the memory speed to DDR333 or even DDR266 in order to run reliably.

 

And depending on when you bought the A7N8X-E Deluxe motherboard, the chipset might have compatibility issues with "value" line memory; these particular revisions of these motherboards are generally only compatible with "enthusiast" and "overclocker" grades of memory.

 

As of now, however, all of the XMS/TWINX series of DDR memory modules are no longer in production (the 3200LL modules have been out of production for over two years now); what modules of the XMS/TWINX line in DDR that are still available are of existing inventory. Only the Value Select series modules are still in production for DDR.

[Mordraken]

First, thank you all very much for your help.

 

Second - you are correct- I was confused about the DDR2. It was actuall CL2 that I read on the chip. My exact current memory is Corsair CMX512-3200C2PT with 2 512 MB modules. I suppose the CL2 doesn't work well with the CL3 value memory...

 

So, with that said, I will look into returning this product and replacing it with this: Twinx2048-3200C2PT which has the same product description as the one I currently have, so it should work.

 

Thanks again, and let me know if the RAM I mentioned above is not an appropriate upgrade.

[RAM GUY]

Just remove what you have now and load setup defaults and then set the memory Voltage to 2.7 Volts and the timings should be Cas 2.5-3-3-6 with this MB and CPU and the memory frequency ratio should be set to 100%.