Complete noobie here...

Before I purchased my corsair Twinx1024-3200C2 sticks I had a two 512 sticks of ddr ram unmatched brands and unmatched speeds. Right this very moment I have those sticks installed along with my Twinx1024-3200C2's with no apparent problems thus far.

 

The very little I know about DDR ram is that no matter how much of it you have it will only be as fast as the slowest one.

 

Reading some of the other posts on this combatability forum, that mixing and matching memory is a big no no.

 

However if I now have 2 gigs of memory is that better than having the Twinx1024-3200C2's alone by themselves which are quite fast from what I believe, but then I'd only have one gig? It's a balacing act of which I don't know the answer because I am not a big tech kind of guy.

 

My mother board is a MSI Lanparty board PRO875

Processor Intel P4 2.6ghz Hyperthreading Enabled

Video card visontek xtasy Radeon X800XT

 

I have not done anything through the bios regarding my memory, alough I'd like to but I don't know what to do, or what set it at.

 

In a nutshell I'd like to know if I should keep the mixed memory with my Twinx1024-3200C2's to have 2 gigs and or just use them alone, would I be sacrificing anything and or gain anything? Also please answer my question as if your writing memory for dummies book. Thanks.

I had a two 512 sticks of ddr ram unmatched brands and unmatched speeds. Right this very moment I have those sticks installed along with my Twinx1024-3200C2's with no apparent problems thus far.

Well not knowing the specs of the other two sticks, I really can't say.

You kinda lucked out by getting all 4 sticks to work together.

If the other 2 sticks are DDR 400, I'd leave it be.

 

There may be a difference in the timings between the Corsair and the other

sticks (again, don't know).

If you're not having any problems and all 4 sticks are running at 400MHz, then

I would'nt worry too much.

Well not knowing the specs of the other two sticks, I really can't say.

You kinda lucked out by getting all 4 sticks to work together.

If the other 2 sticks are DDR 400, I'd leave it be.

 

There may be a difference in the timings between the Corsair and the other

sticks (again, don't know).

If you're not having any problems and all 4 sticks are running at 400MHz, then

I would'nt worry too much.

 

How do I find out what they are running at 400mhz?

Download CPU-Z.

Nevermind, just had my system basically freeze and refused to shut down, even after manually pressing the button on my box, had to flip the power off. I then removed my older ram and just left in the corsair memory, and turn it back on, and now I'm reporting such news.

Please try the system with just our modules installed and see if that does not solve the problem.

 

Dumb question for you. How bad is it to mix CAS Latencies? I have a 256MB DDR266 CL2 module that I pulled out of a Sony Vaio PC and replaced with 1 Gig of Corsair DDR266. My buddy, who has an HP with a different brand, and 256MB DDR 266, CL 2.5 module, wants mine to throw in his system. I told him I thought that was a bad idea since the latencies didn't match. How true is this?