Using part of a pair

[poochiepiano]

I currently have a 2x2gb set of RAM in my PC, and another identical 2x2gb set that I'm not using because one of the sticks broken and I need to RMA it. Would I be able to just stick the one that is working in with my other two sticks? Or will something bad happen b/c its pair is not in there as well?

Edit: I'm mostly asking if sticking in the single stick will affect the existing two. I've used the one stick by itself before, I need to know if it'll play nice with the pair already in it.

 

[Tradesman1]

You can try it, the worse that happens is it won't work, and if it doesn't might be able to tweak the timings and voltages to get them to play

 

[poochiepiano]

You can try it, the worse that happens is it won't work, and if it doesn't might be able to tweak the timings and voltages to get them to play

Yeah, I'm planning on trying it now that it appears that I won't fry anything doing so.

I guess I'm still wondering if it will affect the dual-channel ability of the existing pair. I probably would not even notice if it stopped working since I have no test for it.

 

[Tradesman1]

Dual channel simply looks for an equal amount of DRAM in each channel and then wuns them as such, if unbalanced say 4GB total in Channel A and 6GB in Channel B, many mobos will employ what is often called FLEX mode (an Intel reference) and will run the equal 4 in dual (8GB total) and the remaining odd ball 2GB in B as single channel

 

[poochiepiano]

Dual channel simply looks for an equal amount of DRAM in each channel and then wuns them as such, if unbalanced say 4GB total in Channel A and 6GB in Channel B, many mobos will employ what is often called FLEX mode (an Intel reference) and will run the equal 4 in dual (8GB total) and the remaining odd ball 2GB in B as single channel

Awesome, that's what I was looking for. So the existing ones in channel A (as in slots 1 and 3) will remain dual-channel, and the extra piece (half of a set) will just function as single-channel.

And even if that doesn't necessarily work, it will at least work as 3 single-channel 2gb sticks.

Thanks, Tradesman1!

Still gotta get a new graphics card to run Ghosts haha. My current only does DX9.

 

[Tradesman1]

Glad to help, keep us updated 😉