Ram runs as fast as the slowest stick on the mobo?

[intelx]

i used to have 4 sticks of ram all running at 800mhz, however one of them got damged and i replaced it with a 533 mhz, all models are 1GB.

speed isnt very diffrenet that makes me notice, but i just heard that even if you have 10 sticks of ram at 800mhz and having only 1 of them running at 533, then all of the sticks will down clock their rate and run at 533mhz, is this true? please i need a reply asap.

 

[shortstuff_mt]

Yes, all the RAM will run at the slowest common denominator. It's never a good idea to mix RAM of different speed/timings/voltage on the same motherboard.

 

[intelx]

i see, thanks alot man, but what about the timing? do they also run at the slowest one too?

but is there a way that i can just overclock that memory stick to 800 mhz and get them all to run at 800mhz?

 

[Newf]

The motherboard reads each stick's spd chip and sets all ram to run at the slowest sticks spec (Speed AND timings). If you override this to OC the slow stick you will likely get a BSOD.

 

[cisco]

It will run at the slowest speed of the installed RAM to ensure reliability. You can try to OC it, but it will likely be unstable. You probably won't really notice a real world difference at the slower speed expect maybe in benchmarks. I would just buy more 800mhz ram while it is still around.