Hi, hoping you can help with an issue I'm having. I have a Emachines T3656. Its got a 1gb stick of ram in it right now. It maxes out at 2gb. Now when i researched it online it says it takes PC2 5300. So I went to a local shop that sells ram and asked for a 1gb stick of PC2 5300 and the guy gives me a 1gb stick of PC6400 and told me it was interchangeable. I go home and installed it and when i turned on my pc It didn't load up windows. I took it out, and windows loads up, so obviously not interchangeable. So, I need to get one online. I went to Tigerdirect.com and used the memory configuration thing and it bring up results of PC5400 sticks. So, now I am a bit confused. If anyone can help me out by giving me a link to the ram I need I would really appreciate it. Thanks!
Ram help
- Thread starter Foodang
- Start date
By the way, did you try the stick of DDR2 800 by itself?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...iption=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...iption=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=
yea i did and when i turned it on that time the pc light turned on but nothing on the monitor and then i heard like 6 beeps and it shut off, also thanks for the link.
jamesd1981
Active Member
you cant mix the kinds of ram you cant have one stick of say pc2-5300 and another stick of something else that have to be the same type
I dont think its the best thing, but most memory will run fine together. You just need to find a speed/voltage and timing they will all work at stable.
bomberboysk
Active Member
Usually you will need to drop to the speed of the slowest stick and timings to that of the slowest stick in order for it to work properly, but even then you will lose dual channel capibility.
You do?
schw32m
New Member
PC2-5400 is some times used as an alternate to the PC2-5300 designation, but they both refer to the same speed of DDR2-667. PC2-5300 is DDR2-667 and runs at 166 MHz bus speed. This system uses an ECS 945GCT Mobo.
When running memory on this board you need to run in a dual channel mode. You cannot mix and match ram specifications in dual channel. You need to have the exact same stick specs running in both memory slots.
We are talking about two 1gb. sticks here. Not mixing a 512mb. with a 1gb. stick or what ever.
(Just asking because I,ve done this many times since Dual Channel was released and it works in Dual Channel just fine on any board I've tried it on.)
You just need to find a Speed/Timing and Voltage both sticks will work stable and it will run in Dual Channel.
Lets make this easy, say if you have two 1gb. sticks.
DDR2 1066 at 5-5-5-15 at 2.1V
and
DDR2 800 at 5-5-5-15 at 1.8V
Both sticks will run stable at DDR2 800 with 5-5-5-15 with 1.9V
The Memory Controller will run them in Dual Channel.
schw32m
New Member
Ya think? I wasn't talking about mixing capacity either. The OP already said that he had a 1 gig stick and bought another 1 gig stick that was different and it didn't work.
I'm well aware that modules rated at different speeds can be run in dual-channel mode and that the motherboard will then run all the memory modules at the speed of the slowest module. Some motherboards, and this may be one of them, may have compatibility issues when attempting to use different speed modules in dual-channel mode. For this reason, the rule of thumb, is to use identical pairs of memory modules, which is why most memory manufacturers now sell "kits" of matched pair sticks. Several motherboard manufacturers only support configurations where a "matched pair" of modules is used.
A matching pair needs to match in:
Capacity (e.g. 1024 MB). Certain Intel chipsets support different capacity chips in what they call Flex Mode: the capacity that can be matched is run in dual-channel, while the remainder runs in single-channel. But to avoid confusion just get another one of the same size or buy a memory upgrade kit.
Speed (e.g. PC5300). If speed is not the same, the lower speed of the two modules will be used. Likewise with the latency of the two modules.
Number of chips and sides (e.g. 2 sides with 4 chips on each side).
Because the two modules are accessed at the same time, they should be identical (same capacity, same timings, same clock rate and same design, etc.).
While you and I may know how to make it work by playing with the timing, latency, speed and what not, my bet is the OP doesn't. Also, from what the OP said about the problem, it is a pretty good bet the motherboard doesn't support that sort of flexibility either, otherwise he wouldn't have had the boot problem.
So the simple solution is to "match" the sticks and avoid the issue in the first place.
*IF* the motherboard will support doing it that way. Since this is an OEM (e-machines) motherboard, chances are pretty good that being able to toy around with the ram timing/speed/voltage has been disabled in the BIOS.
Lets make it even easier.
Put another 5300/5400 stick that matches the specs of the stick that is in there. They have a part number listing for the installed memory and a QVL on the ECS site that lists tested memory for this board. Instead of mucking around with it, match the sticks and the problem is solved.
Give me a break on the long drawn out memory class.
Did I not ask him if the DDR2 800 would boot on its own?
Did he say that, no it would not?
Did I not give him a link to PC2 5300?
You said (You cannot mix and match ram specifications in dual channel. You need to have the exact same stick specs running in both memory slots.) Period.
Even on OEM in general it is not true. Most OEM even without manual Bios setting will default the memory to the slowest stick. True there are times when both sticks are completely incompatible or the bios just sucks that you will have problems. But thats not the rule.
Plus he said the DDR2 800 would not boot at all. So as far as we know it could have just been a bad stick of memory.
Did I not ask him if the DDR2 800 would boot on its own?
Did he say that, no it would not?
Did I not give him a link to PC2 5300?
You said (You cannot mix and match ram specifications in dual channel. You need to have the exact same stick specs running in both memory slots.) Period.
Even on OEM in general it is not true. Most OEM even without manual Bios setting will default the memory to the slowest stick. True there are times when both sticks are completely incompatible or the bios just sucks that you will have problems. But thats not the rule.
Plus he said the DDR2 800 would not boot at all. So as far as we know it could have just been a bad stick of memory.