11. Just add more DRAM, it will be perfectly fine.
This is another one where you should turn and run or simply ignore the source, to paraphrase Dorothy’s famous line in the Wizard of Oz, “Toto, I don’t think we are in Kansas anymore”, I’d say “We aren’t working with DDR2 anymore”; or even “we aren’t working with early DDR3 anymore”. Starting about the same time the DRAM manufacturers decided to exceed the JEDEC DDR3 spec of 1600 being the max DRAM data rate that had ‘set’ standards (and even a little before when they started tightening up 1600 sticks, mixing sticks has not been as easy as it was with DDR and DDR2.
Simply put, mixing DRAM from different packages is a crapshoot (even when you have two identical packages of the same exact model of DRAM), maybe they will play nice or maybe they won’t. (I will add those that don’t appear to want to play can often be helped into playing nice with voltage and/or timing adjustments…but not always – there are no guarantees. A couple of examples of that are shown in my article “Not Just another DAMN DRAM Review (insert link) where two of the companies didn’t make 32GB sets of 2400 DRAM and sent me a pair of matching 2x8GB sets. Neither worked initially and took minor adjustments to run smoothly. I’ve also gone on calls to clients though, where they had a pair of matching sets that just wouldn’t play together period. Didn’t matter what I tried and I’m relatively savvy and comfortable with DRAM and making adjustments of voltages, primary, secondary and even tertiary timings.
When you see and hear these types of claims, they are often accompanied some relatively decent advice like:
A.) Get the same exact model.
B.) Make sure the frequency/data rate, timings and voltages match.
Decent advice if you HAVE TO MIX DRAM and it possibly can improve your chances – but wish these folks would throw in a disclaimer that there are no guarantees. Let’s face it, if the manufacturer of the DRAM won’t guarantee that two identical sets of theirs will play together – how can Joe “I know everything” Blow off the street guarantee they will play nice?
Why can it be such a problem you ask? After all, they are the same frequency, timings, voltage – so they are the same right? Far from it….
DRAM is made up (basically) of memory chips that are soldered to a PCB for a simplistic explanation, that is driven with electricity. During the course of a production run of DRAM sticks of a given model, they might be finishing up a large section of PCB that has been cut to the DIMM size and switch to a new PCB that was from a different production lot of the PCB material, which can provide ever so slightly different properties, than the previous PCB used. Same can happen with the physical solder being used, or they may change to a completely different kind, which has ever so slightly different conductivity properties. Then there are the chips themselves, when made by the actual chip manufacturer the chips are binned by the manufacturer as to quality. Let’s take a closer theoretical look at this.
A single production lot may result in say 1,000 memory chips. These are then separated or binned to a number of levels. We’ll say to a fair degree of maybe 4 levels – A through D. We’ll say A (200 chips) is entry level, B (350 chips) is a little better, C (300 chips) even better and D (150 chips) are the best chips. They then sell these chips to two separate manufacturers; we’ll sell them to Wiley Coyote’s favorite manufacture ACME and the rest to our second company who we’ll call Deluxe DRAM (a highly rated company….. Of that production lot ACME might buy all the A chips (for the lower prices) most of the B and a few of the C chips, then the Deluxe DRAM company buys the rest, so each company has an equal amount of chips 500.
ACME get their chips and decides they can make 60 sticks so they simply make 15 ea. of 1333, 1600, 1866, and 2133….and start with A binned chips and use them till they run out, then move to the B sticks and on up. Since they bought very few of the better chips, then some of their 2133 sticks are using C rated chips, most of their 1866 sticks are made with a combination of B-C chips then finally the 1333 and 1600 sticks are from a combination of A and B chips.
Across the street Deluxe DRAM takes their new chips and further separates them to their own specs and they might end up after the binning process with 5 separate groups of chips, adding a E category to the existing, they then make 1333 sticks out of the A chips, 1600 out of the B etc. and have some bonus high end 2400 sticks.
When they each go to make their sticks, Deluxe DRAM gets high end PCBs and solder, and ACME (while I won’t say they buy cheap, but they might), takes a different route and buys different PCBs and a different brand of solder. Also each use their own production equipment and have their own specs as to how much solder is used, the temps they have things set at etc.
Once the sticks are made, each manufacturer then takes the sticks and test them as to their tolerances and match/test the sticks further to a point where they know the sticks that go together in a given package will play together – and they guarantee those sticks in that package to play together. (It’s possible that they might even plan to get say four 4 stick sets out of a given production lot – and not be able to find four sets of 4 sticks that will play together. (In than given scenario, you can see where if you buy two packages of 2 sticks they might not play, and is why the manufacturers won’t guarantee mixing sets
Further if you were to go out and buy a 1866 stick from each company you effectively are probably getting a different PCB in each, different solder which has variable conducting qualities from the other and quite possibly different graded chips and/or chips from different manufacturers..
Now throw in that there a number of companies making memory chips, which further adds to the questionability of compatibility (and all those other ‘bility’s’ that might play in), and you might start to see why mixing sticks can be and often is problematic.
We also might note that most all newer lines of DRAM use 4Gb memory chips where older lines the norm was 2Gb memory chips. (Whoo! glad that one’s out of the way)
I Will try it out and if all else fails then... unlucky. Thanks again.
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