Ram upgarde question

[badbilly27]

I have a Sony Vaio MXS20 desktop system with PC2100 512MB DDR Ram (184pin) 266Mhz. I saw a sale at Circuit City here The specs say 400mhz. Can I put the same Ram in a machine with higher MHZ capability or will I fry it out?

Just stinks because Kingston site has links selling it for $85 here

Appreciate advice.

 

[PurdueRy]

It will work fine...but run at the PC2100 speed

 

[Noubourne]

Why are you buying a 512MB stick of DDR for $70 from anywhere?

Go to Newegg. PC2100 512MB $48.

Or get the DDR400 for about the same price from Newegg if you want. Watch out though, most PC2100 is 2.5v. If you buy a stick of DDR400 rated to take 2.6v and your board can't do that, you might be asking for trouble.

 

[Noubourne]

Based on a brief Google search, I believe you want to try to get CAS 2.5 RAM that only uses 2.5v, because I am pretty sure that's what your computer is using now.

So don't buy any 2.6v. The PQI stuff for $48 should work perfectly.

 

[badbilly27]

Thanks to both of you.

Noubourne - Wouldn't the Circuit City Ram for $34.99 be best deal IF 400mhz will work in my machine?

 

[badbilly27]

One last bump. Circuit City sale ends today. Would like one last opinion. Appreciated.

 

[loafbred]

I have a couple of recent experiences that might help a little.

I worked on a Dell Dimension 4600 (P4, 2.0 GHz if I recall correctly) a couple of months ago, which had 256mb DDR, but I've forgotten what grade (it was single sided). I added a 512mb dimm of my Patriot PC3200 XBL, to ease the pain of reinstalling WinXP, and the two dimms worked together fine.

Last week, I worked on a Dell Dimension 4550, 2.0 GHz P4 with 512k L2, also with 256mb of single sided DDR. I checked the memory on this one thoroughly, because the owner wanted more RAM. It had Samsung single-sided PC2100. This time, mixing the existing RAM with my Patriot double-sided RAM didn't work... just a beep and no post, even after swapping them in the two slots. I took out the single-sided dimm, installed both of my 512mb dimms of Patriot XBL, and it worked fine, running Prime95 for several hours. CPU-z showed it running at PC2100 with 2-2-2-5 latencies. After much shopping, I decided to forget about the 256mb dimm, and not to buy a guaranteed compatible 256 or 512mb dimm to use with the existing RAM (overpriced). I got a 512mb dimm of Patriot PC3200 LL (2-3-2-5, 2.5v) for $47. CPU-z shows it running at PC2100, 2-2-2-5, and it ran several hours of Prime95, as well. Now, the owner can add another 512mb dimm without me having to get a migraine picking something compatible.

The moral of the story is that the Kingston will almost certainly work if it's rated for 2.5v, but don't be surprised if the motherboard has a problem with running two different types of dimms together.

 

[badbilly27]

Thanks for the reply. I'm sorry I try to play techy but I'm only surface layer. Tech wannabe.

Untech interpretation: If I buy the Kingston there is a good chance my motherboard won't accept it as it doesn't pair well with the RAM already in my system. So, I should either buy a compatible RAM or buy PAtriot RAM in pairs and replace my 512Mb already in there? My system (per SOny) can only support 1GB.

THanks for the replies.

 

[loafbred]

Since you have a 512mb dimm, and almost all 512mb dimms are double-sided, it's extremely unlikely that the motherboard would have a problem with the Kingston you want to buy.

The SPD ROM on RAM dimms tell the motherboard BIOS how to set the bus speed and latencies. There are occasionally problems with using virtually identical dimms from two different manufacturers, because the SPD ROMS on the two different brand of dimms have some kind of conflict with the motherboard's BIOS, which can be due to poorly thought out programming of either the SPD ROM or the BIOS. As far as I know, such conflicts are very rare when adding higher grade memory to an older system (keeping in mind that I'm talking about using two very similar double-sided, 512mb dimms).

>> So, I should either buy a compatible RAM or buy PAtriot RAM in pairs and replace my 512Mb already in there? My system (per SOny) can only support 1GB.<<

No, I'm not recommending Patriot as being more likely to be compatible with most motherboards, because I don't have enough experience with different brands to reach such a conclusion... I just happened to find a good price on the PC3200 LL, it's rated for 400 MHz at low latencies at 2.5v, and would be good to sell later or transfer to another machine. Of course, the Patriot dimms do impress me by working in anything I've put them in so far (not that many, but several). I would feel pretty comfortable about adding that Kingston dimm to what you already have. Kingston has a good reputation for compatibility. If the dimm you already have was single-sided (very rare for 512mb dimms, I think there are some Kingmax BGA chip dimms like that) I would be very nervous about mixing it with any double-sided dimm.