Mixing RAM, will it work?

[AKM880]

My Dell C521 currently has a cheap stick of Crucial Rendition PC6400 800mhz RAM. It is 1GB, I have the old PC-4200 512MB DDR2 533mhz RAM. Can I mix it and make it 1.5GB?

 

[Outlander_04]

yes .

it will run at the speed of the slowest stick , but you are better off with the extra ram

 

[AKM880]

So the RAM will downclock to 533MHZ?

 

[Outlander_04]

yes ,

that will drop system performance a fraction , but the extra total of ram will more than compensate at the times your system needs it

 

[Proximon]

Providing they both run at the same voltage and timings at that setting, yes. You'll have to set it up manually first.

 

[avatar_raq]

Manually set the timings (especially the cas latency), and bus to that of the slower dimm (i.e the lowest bus speed and the highest (most lax) timings)..
However you may encounter stabilty issues due to the inability of one of your sticks to run at the voltage the bios set, so you may have to manually set the voltage to the higher one.
If you are lucky you may even be able to oc the 533 mhz one to reach 800 mhz or as close as possible by raising the voltage.
Honestly, does the bios of your laptop have these options? As far as I know most laptops don't allow the user to manually change speeds and voltages. If so you may just want to drop the additional dimm and see if it works!
What OS do you use? If you use windows XP and you don't game on this laptop, then 1 Gb is enough and slowing down your ram may slow down your whole system in certain situations. Windows vista, however, will make good use of the additional ram.
Hope that helped you.

 

[Outlander_04]

Its the original ram from the system .

No manual setting of anything is going to be required

 

[jitpublisher]

What outlander_04 said.
Technically the faster stick will be downclocked to the speed of the slower stick, but the increased amount of RAM is going be way more beneficial and you will actually see an increase in system performance. With RAM, the most important thing is having enough. There is not a lot of difference in the speeds...as far as performance goes. You can only see the difference in benchmarks. Most people could not actually tell the difference between 333mhz DDR2 and 1333mhz DDR3 during normal PC daily tasks, and even gaming.... unless they ran a benchmark program.
There simply is not a huge difference.

 

[apache_lives]

DDR2 is so cheap, ditch it all and get 2x2gb

mixing is a hit and miss thing - never know what it will do, your better off with matched sticks etc

Ram golden rules - stick with most matched, and least possible ammount of sticks etc

 

[AKM880]

If I get another 1GB PC6400 Crucial Rendition stick of RAM, I can run them in dual channel b/c my motherboard supports it. Will this be a better idea?

 

[Proximon]

Sure, if your budget is that tight.

 

[AKM880]

Are the Crucial Redention bad RAM? I know its cheap lol

 

[Proximon]

I find Crucial to be over volted and prone to failure the past two years. They used to be good.

 

[AKM880]

Thanks, it was only $12 lol. So any RAM will work in dual channel as longa sthe motherboard supprots it right? And how good is OCZ, or Corsair RAM

 

[Proximon]

G.Skill, Corsair, Kingston, OCZ, Mushkin, all those are good, depends on which kit you pick.

Look for low voltage and low timings, like:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146764
OR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231219

 

[Proximon]

Actually, looks like you are limited to 1GB sticks. You probably don't want to throw much money at that machine...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227060

 

[AKM880]

Thats the main reason for the cheap RAM, lol. If I buy the EXACT same RAM it'll work in dual channel right?

 

[Proximon]

Yep.

 

[AKM880]

Thanks for the help Proximon. I appreciate it.