4 Ram Stick in a Dual Channel Motherboard?

Peter1123

Reputable
Dec 30, 2015
16
0
4,520
When i first built my PC i put MSI Z97S Sli Krait Edition with 2 sticks of 4gb Ram HyperX 8 GB 1600 MHz CL9 DDR3(2x 4GB) and everything worked well.
Later, i decided i wanted more ram so i bought the same ram again, but when i installed them in the motherboard, it showed as if i still had 8gb not 16.
Cpu is i5 4960k

Did i put it wrong or it doesnt work? From what i understand if a motherboard supports 4 ram slots but in dual channel only, you can still put 4 sticks inside and run on dual channel
 
Solution
yes, when a motherboard is Dual channel, and you populate all four slots, it just runs both sets of RAM in dual channel per set.

when putting RAM together that didn't come as part of the same kit, there is no guarantee that it'll work.
The only guarantee you get is when buying all the RAM as part of a single kit.

Make sure your original two sticks are in their appropriate slots for dual channel then add the other kit into the second dual channel slots.

Dual channel requires one stick to be in channel A and the other stick to be in the same numbered slot in channel B.

So for your 4 sticks it would be like this:
Original 2 sticks in slots A1 and B1
new sticks in slots A2 and B2

be sure to make sure everything is set up right with XMP...

QwerkyPengwen

Splendid
Ambassador
yes, when a motherboard is Dual channel, and you populate all four slots, it just runs both sets of RAM in dual channel per set.

when putting RAM together that didn't come as part of the same kit, there is no guarantee that it'll work.
The only guarantee you get is when buying all the RAM as part of a single kit.

Make sure your original two sticks are in their appropriate slots for dual channel then add the other kit into the second dual channel slots.

Dual channel requires one stick to be in channel A and the other stick to be in the same numbered slot in channel B.

So for your 4 sticks it would be like this:
Original 2 sticks in slots A1 and B1
new sticks in slots A2 and B2

be sure to make sure everything is set up right with XMP profiles in BIOS.
 
Solution