Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
RAM question
I was under the impression I had 1gb of ram, but really, I have 1 512 stick and 2 256's. Is this worse than having just 1gb stick? please explain the difference.
Edit: other than the obvious it's taking 3 spaces and limiting the amount of ram I can have, is it any slower?
Comments
Depends on your system, but yeah, typically one stick, or a matched pair is better than some patched together concoction. You will typically get better performance out of either one chip or a matched pair. You lose performance when you start mixing and matching pieces of RAM like that.
Then again, 1gb total is better than only 512k eh?
D.
as long as the RAM is the same type (e.g. clock speed and timings) then you wont have THAT MUCH of a performance hit, but if say the 512Mb stick is 400 Mhz and the 256's are 200 Mhz then all of your RAM will run at 200, i belive, though i have never tested this on my own hardware, this i have picked up from boards and readme's
best to check if the labels are still on your sticks and see if they are all the same speed 
best advice i can offer you
yea, one stick is better but really if you want better latency just get dual memory. Of course if you are running with 512 and two 256, your board probably doesn't do that so is it worth getting upset over? simply - no.
you should also keep your channels standardized. I.E. If you have a 512 chip, and 2 256 chips, and 4 available slots (Ram slots tend to come in pairs) do not put the 512 in the same channel as one of the 256's, and then the last 256 on its own. Keep the 256's together and the 512 on its own.
you're thinking dual, my money is it's not setup for dual memory.
They are all 400mhz. right now it's setup up from left to right, 256,512,256, emptyslot. Should I move it around to 256,256,512, empty slot?
I don't think I'll be upgrading this thing lol.. it's a p4 3ghz dell... I'm kind of excited to build a new pc but I'll make another post when the time comes.. Thanks for the help everyone!!
They seem to be in the appropriate slots. If it is running fine now, I wouldn't mess with it, just leave it be. Especially since you will be building a new system in the vaguely near future.
D.