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Forum: Geek Forum
Topic: Question about RAM
started by: Blain

Posted by Blain on Feb. 03 2001,07:14

Ok, I have a quick lam0r question: I currently have 256 megs of PC133 CAS2 ram. I can get a 128 meg stick of PC 133, (for free!) but I don’t know if the speed or timing are the same as my current stick. Basically my question is: will mixing and matching ram like this cause my already fairly unstable pc to explode, or crash more, or something?

Posted by ic0n0 on Feb. 03 2001,12:29

ir depends on what kind of bus you have, i asume you have a pc133 bus, is the new ram sdram or cas2? that may fuck it up if they are differing types.

Posted by incubus on Feb. 03 2001,12:31

Depends if it's CAS2 or CAS3. Worst comes to the worst and its 3, you can run the lot at CAS3. To be honest 256 at CAS3 will prolly make your system better than 128 at CAS2.

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-- incubus
As I chase the leaves like the words I never find ...

Posted by kuru on Feb. 03 2001,20:20

my reccomendation would be to stick in that new ram, switch it all over to CAS3 and hope that takes care of your stability issues.

if you're unstable as it is, switching to CAS3 isn't really going to make anything worse, and anything stable's better than what you've got.

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kuru
'dancing is the vertical expression of horizontal desire.'
-robert frost

Posted by Blain on Feb. 03 2001,23:49

I think my new stick is cas 2, at least it works when I have it set up that way. If these damn stability issues continue I will try cas3. Thanks for the help.

Posted by askheaves on Feb. 04 2001,05:22

You got your numbers a bit scrambled there, incubus. He currently has 256 Meg, rated at CAS2. If he's got stability issues (not stemming from the OS), then he's most likely running at CAS2, and the RAM he has is on the outskirts of CAS2 rating. If the new stuff is also CAS2, there theoretically shouldn't be a problem. However, the CAS2 rating has some leeway in it, and the new stuff could be worse... especially if he is overclocking to begin with.

My recommendation, put the new stuff (128Meg worth) in the system, then run into the BIOS and switch your Mem to CAS3. It's not the worst thing in the world. I have to run mine at CAS3 since I'm overclocking it so much (133 @ 155). Having 384 worth of mem will outweigh the access time issue. Plus, if you have a good amount of cache, then you don't have to worry about that latency much of the time anyways.