Ram's with different timings

[Rooney W]

I have two RAM’s of different memory sizes and also with different timings. I currently have RAM with 2GB memory DDR2 corsair cm2x1024-6400c4 which has comparatively lower timing then the other I am finding and also I need to buy some more RAM. Do you think RAM’s with different memory size and different timings will work? Do you think it will increase the speed of my computer? Can you help me with this?

[Logan.M]

When you combine the RAM of different timings, it will move to the slowest speed one and since there is a limitation to the speed of the RAM the computer will automatically adjust to try and run the memory pool and at the same speed. If you decide to run DDR2 corsair cm2x1024-6400c4 with some other model then it would slow down to 800 even though your second RAM is more advanced than the older one thus that would be the maximum speed of the other card. Thus my advice to you is that don’t buy a new RAM its of no worth.

[Abhibhava]

There is another solution to your problem that is to use two sticks of different speed which normally don’t have any problem. This will allow the computer to use both at the same time. It will split the information between the two sticks so that it will be able to read from both. The only problem with them is that they have to be slowed together at the same speed. But still it is faster to read from two sticks at the same time than from only one.

[Balamani]

You know that there is more than 1 slot placed in the CPU to add extra RAM. RAM’s basically have different latency. You can place the RAM with the slowest latency in the first slot. It is not a good idea of mixing DIMM’s in such a way because they are built with different chips. Finally you are not going to hurt much ultimately it will only slow down your work. You can try this solution and may be it will solve your problem.

[Apple.Mac.Rocker]

Also, when you buy a new RAM just check it out that you by the RAM having equal latency to your old RAM. Just for sure you must make a bootable Memtest86+ CD (the latest version is 2.01) which is a tool that tests the memory modules. Memtest86 carefully checks the RAM looking for any bad bits. It takes some time, so leave it running over night. This will be very helpful to you. You can download this tool from the internet. If you want to make a CD for it then Download the ISO current version (memtest86+-1.70.iso.zip) to your PC, extract the zip to the desktop, go to the CD burning software such as Nero, after the CD gets writes simply leave the CD in the drive and boot from CD by pressing a key (if needed) then run the test.