RAM and Case Upgrade

[PantherHawk22]

I'm looking to upgrade my case and ram on my PC. Right now I have 4Gb of Crucial Ballistix Sport single stick. I was looking on Tiger Direct and saw they had this kit. Would it hurt to put the 8GB Hyper-X and my 4Gb Crucial together. My motherboard only supports two channel. Looking for a case and RAM upgrade for under $100.

Link to kit on Tiger Direct.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=9514747&CatId=6828

 

[Shadeslayer110]

You cannot put RAM of different company, name, or size together. I am not sure of the size, but I definitely know that putting different RAM together will cause problems. You can get another 4 gb of the RAM you have already, or go with a different company or name of RAM.

 

[ShameGame]

You cannot put RAM of different company, name, or size together. I am not sure of the size, but I definitely know that putting different RAM together will cause problems. You can get another 4 gb of the RAM you have already, or go with a different company or name of RAM.

Ask him what can be the problem.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

RAM needs to be same size, same speed and same CAS timings. Name means nothing as the vendor didn't make the RAM modules and that is what determines compatibility. Hynix will generally work with Hynix, Samsung with Samsung and Elpida with Elpida. For example, you have a better chance getting Mushking Redline (Hynix) to work with older Corsair Vengeance Pro (Hynix) than getting the pre version 4.51 Vengeance Pro to work with the newer Vengeance Pro (not Hynix).

The more things that are different the harder it will be to get them to work together. You can slow down one set of 2133 to work with one set of 1600 for example, and slow down one set of CAS 9 to work with say CAS 11, and increase 1.5 voltage set to work with 1.6 v set ..... I have done it many times. But even two separate 2 x 4GB sticks of the exact same spec and supplier and model name purchased on the same day are not **guaranteed** to work together.

I had two users requesting upgrades to old boxes, one had Mushkin, the other Corsair. It was so old tho that only Gskill still had kits out there so I bought 2 sets. Neither worked. However, I was able to get the two Gskill's to work together and i was able to get the Mushkin and Corsair sets to work together, even tho they had slightly different timings....I just slowed the faster one down to match the slower one.

Dual channel RAM should always be purchased in multiples of two and in the same package.

 

[ShameGame]

I don't think he is referring to dual chchannel.
I think he just means two ram sticks can be put in his mobo

 

[JackNaylorPE]

I was referring to:

Would it hurt to put the 8GB Hyper-X and my 4Gb Crucial together.

 

[ShameGame]

I was referring to:

Would it hurt to put the 8GB Hyper-X and my 4Gb Crucial together.

It wouldn't hurt if ur mobo doesn't support dual channel

 

[JackNaylorPE]

How old would that have to be ? ..... I would imagine about 7 - 8 years maybe 10 ?

 

[ShameGame]

How old would that have to be ? ..... I would imagine about 7 - 8 years maybe 10 ?

He hasn't yet told us about his mobo so until then anything is possible.

 

[ShameGame]

And the probability of two different rams not working out on a dual channel is maybe like 1/10
or worst case scenario 2/10

 

[JackNaylorPE]

He hasn't yet told us about his mobo so until then anything is possible.

Possible yes... I had an old Wang APC on a desk for 26 years because it had a structural program we used to design green houses for a national manufacturer. But likely ? The longest I had a windows box was about 8 years. Multichannel RAM's been around at least the long on the desktop.

As for mixing RAM, I seem to have much better luck than most report here. I'd say we've had about an 80-85% success rate. Of course it gets harder, the longer between the original build and the upgrade. Some manufacturers don't keep making the stuff that long.... when i was asked to upgrade a box from 4 to 8 GB of Corsairs.... I decided to upgrade my son's build (Mushkins) also. Only manufacturer who had same speed / CAS stuff was GSkill so bought 1 set for each. Coudn't get either to boot and stay stable but I gave the 4 GSkills to the guy and put the 2 Corsairs in the box with the mushkins which worked.

 

[ShameGame]

When I first built my computer the rams wwhich I used were of two different companies bought a month apart. And these were not some hotshot modules. I really did not had any problem whatsoever. After an year or so the first ram died and the performance died down as expected.
So no problem with me too.

 

[Shadeslayer110]

When I first built my computer the rams wwhich I used were of two different companies bought a month apart. And these were not some hotshot modules. I really did not had any problem whatsoever. After an year or so the first ram died and the performance died down as expected.
So no problem with me too.

Really? Well, I must have been wrong then. However, from what I know, RAM shouldn't be together if they are different. This might be for only some types, but I don't know. I would still say that he should buy the RAM from the same type on company though, just to stay on the safe side. Obviously, though, you know more than me.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

How do you know they are different ? You can by two PSUs from say Corsair and find that they are completely different they are made by different OEMs. Example:

Let's say you have a pair of Corsair Vengeance Pro (Version 4.32) DDR3-2400 CAS 10

Options for replacement:

Corsair Vengeance Pro (Version 4.63) DDR3-2400 CAS 10
Mushkin Redline DDR3-2400 CAS 10

Which do you buy ?

The Corsair Vengeance Pro DDR3-2400 CAS 10 prior to version 4.51 used Hynix Modules with 10-12-12-28 timings. After version 4.51 Corsair dropped Hynix and switched to a less expensive manufacturer with 10-12-12-31 timings. The Redlines still use the Hynix modules and are, other than the heatsinks, are an identical match for the early VPs.