can i add more ram?

Hi,

Yes if it's the exact same ram you it should work without any problem.
In fact if the new ram is different, you will most likely get problems (BSOD, slowdown and freezes)

Having same RAM sticks definitely saves a lot of trouble... but as far as I know you can set the frequencies and latencies in the BIOS... you just have to set the values from the slowest stick as far as I know...

you can mix brands fine. what your looking for to avoid issues is to match the specs. get the same sped you have now ddr3 1600, 1866..., voltage and the same latency such as cas 9, 10, 11. this is what will mess with the bios and need to be adjusted.

if your unsure what you have now, go to crucial.com and allow it to scan your system. it will tell you EXACTLY what you have now so you know what to match it with. you don't have to buy from them to use the tool but it sure saves a lot of guessing.

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And you'll guarantee this? Or maybe explain what there are so many threads here and all over the net of people buying another exact same identical model to what they have and they don't work? Let alone the threads wher people bought a different brand with identical specs?

i can guarantee anything not like it will hold true. there can be issues with anything. but just like others said, matching specs will give the best chance of no issues.

you make it sound like 99% of the time your gonna have problems no matter what you do. this is just not the case. i do exactly what i said to do above and can say i don't have issues very often. i can think of a handful of case over the years that did not like a ram addition and these were usually (not all but usually) motherboard compatibility issues and did not work with just the new ram.

i'm not saying it does not happen, but my experience is that it is rare. if your experience is otherwise so be it. i can only speak from what i know and have experienced and that is if your careful and match specs, most of the time your fine.

feel free to differ with me with your experience but please don't do in such a way as to suggest i don't know what i'm talking about.

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You stated "you can mix brands fine" - which leads all to many people to believe there will be no problems, all will be FINE...which is simply not true - as I pointed out, even with the exact same model of DRAM mixing sets often is problematic. I don't know anyone in the systems world, be it builders, techs, IT pros, DRAM manufacturers, mobo manufacturers that go along with your 'reasoning' as it all to often becomes a problem for not only the person trying this but the various support people from the manufacturers and tech support folks.

Can they be mixed, it's always a crapshoot, maybe yes, maybe no, and it's easy to tell people "Sure it'll be fine", it isn't your money or time on the line - and if they don't play together, then the person faces RMAing, shipping fees, restocking fees, being without the (quite possibly needed) DRAM for a longer period, etc.

The DRAM that goes into a package is all tested to work together, you can pull 10 sticks right off an assembly line and it's possible out of those 10 you will only find 4 that will all play nice together at spec - that's also why, quite often a 4 stick set costs more than 2 two stick sets - it takes more testing to match up 4 sticks

sounds great to me, so why did you not tell the op to sell what he has and buy a 4 x 4 set. this is clearly the only intelligent solution to the problem and as such you need to be sure this is expressed.

why leave it to us uninformed hacks to fumble about with, when the answer is so obvious?

my apologies to the op for my horrible advice. please buy a 4 x 4gb set if you want to upgrade your ram as this is the only way you will ever be able to use it again.

thanks for educating me. i will be pouring a gallon of bleach into my ears tonight to help get rid of all the delusions and false experiences cluttering my mind. in the future i will never ever do anything but what you advise in the future. scouts honor.

i know this will come off as sarcastic but i'm not sure how else to express my gratitude for you showing me the foolishness of my ways. i am a changed man.

Actually it can be sold, put in another rig, saved for an emergency, there are many things you can do w/ old DRAM. I was simply pointing out that neither you or anyone else can guarantee that mixed sets of DRAM will 'be fine' as you implied, far from it. And as you so eloquently put it, Yes, YOU can guarantee anything - though it would be nice with a disclaimer as you added later, 'not that it will hold true', which is sort of my point, it's easy to make statements as to what will happen with something when it's someone else's money and time that's on the line. Most coming here are looking for honest, truthful, factual advice.

i hear ya. if you read through threads i post in i will always post any disclaimers that i need to. in this particular case, i posted what my experiences are and did not feel the need to state that, "though i have done this many times with no issues, others on the internet have had troubles so you should not expect my results but instead expect a lot of issues and little chance of success. my experience is unimportant and you should listen to what others have read. i am the luckiest pc person on the planet and your experiences WILL vary"

or if you have something better i will make it my signature so i won't forget to add it. everyone's experiences are different but yours is most important and should be accepted above all others and i just want to be sure i don't overstep my bounds again and pretend i know something just because i have done it with success before.

again my apologies for wasting all my time working on computers and not reading more about what others are doing. i WILL spend more time now figuring out how everything can go wrong rather than just plodding along in ignorant bliss doing what i have been doing. basically you can see i want to make you happy and seek your approval.

Well that's what forums are for, I came here to help folks and I still learn things everyday, and figure I'll continue to, even after over 30 years in the systems field....DRAM is probably the least understood component in a PC, there are so many misunderstandings about it. Just finished a review/article on how DRAM, in a comparative Intel vs AMD systems theme, runs, which is in part is a lead in for the article I am currently working on (working title) DRAM: Facts and Fiction, Myths and Misunderstandings

as i have stated, what you are saying is completely counter to all i have experienced in my years of working with pc's.

so here's a question for you. when did all these compatibility issues start? just ddr 3 or has it always been around since ddr1 or even before? i am trying to understand what you are saying but basically we are both standing on a hillside on a sunny afternoon and you're telling me the pretty blue sky is actually bright red and blue is only a myth that people just keep repeating no matter what. i'm staring blankly at you wondering just exactly WTF you're talking about sinc eeveryone will tell you it is blue. i hope this analogy makes sense. cause your telling me that what i have been doing for years now with almost 100% success is a myth, wrong and basically a lie or i am the luckiest human on earth getting such success rates with so low a probability of success. and even worse your telling me that by repeating my experiences i am actually spreading myth's and untruth's to people coming here looking for help.

i ask about when this started as an issue due to some basic facts and here they are. as part of my business i usually keep the older stuff people give me when they get a new pc. i frankenstein systems of all kinds and give them away as part of an outreach ministry to needy families. i have systems and parts from all types of pc's from all over the years. from pentium 3's to athlon's to newer vista based systems and even some win 7 celeron/athlon x4 systems folks upgraded and let me have the old one. so i have a box of parts that i have collected over the years which includes a healthy bunch of random ram sticks of ddr1,2 and 3. each stick is labeled with it's specs and awaits a new life in a needy pc. at least once a week i grab a stick out of it and put it in someone's system as a low cost/free upgrade or part of a frankenstein system, mostly for people with simple needs who just need another gb or so of ram (or with older ones going from 512 to 1 gb is a huge jump). little thought goes into this other than, "does the speed match?" and i swear on a stack of bibles/korans/toras/hitchhikers guide to the galaxy's that what you are describing has never been an issue for me. the sticks work, the pc runs fine and i never look back. i'm talking random sticks that are all kinds of mismatched that i have taken from just as random pc's.

i have not said and will never say that you have not read/seen/experienced what you are saying but from where i am sitting it's not an issue. debate me all you want but it's gonna be hard to convince me i'm just the luckiest person ever and blessed by the hand of the pc gods for all eternity (as much as i want to believe Nagunda the virus god loves me to death)

i ask about ddr3 as i have less of it sitting around and usually have to order it to upgrade someone but even then matching specs has been successful for me. it's less random since i am ordering it new but still is what it is and that is counter to what your saying.

i'm gonna look around and read some and try to figure out what issues people are saying they have and what the solutions seem to be but until i begin seeing it in my daily dealings it is just going to remain unapplied knowledge. i can't force issues to arise to create supporting data that there are issues. it just does not work that way.


i also take offense (as you may have noted) to your stance that my experience is somehow wrong/invalid or just false because it differs from yours. i avoid threads where i am not sure what i am saying and avoid offering advice i am not 100% sure of unless i also state the fact that i am unsure. feel free to follow me around the forum and state after me that your experience is different and offer links or whatever to back it up but i will not tolerate being called a liar spreading false info to people. healthy debate is fine but abusing your mod status to bully folks into accepting your version is juvenile at best. happens all the time around here where a mod will call someone an idiot, state to the op they do not know what they are talking about and then close the thread. kudos to you at least for not closing the thread even though it is now only our discussion and no longer pertains to the op but still it happens too much around here. if the forum is simply for us to read the mods opinions, then don't let anyone post anything besides the question and only the mods can post answers. i do this to amuse myself and help kill time i would spend otherwise watching window's installs. i don't get paid for this and have never even considered offering to fix stuff for people for money as some kind of marketing thing on the forum. remember who is here helping and realize that abusing free help is a sure fire way of chasing off quality help and leaving only the riffraff who are actually spreading myth and legend and truly don't know what they are doing but saying it anyway.

though i get a warm and fuzzy multiple times a day from grateful help seekers, it is often overshadowed by mods acting the fool. i am considering looking for a different forum to spend time on and offer help as it is starting to take the fun out of this for me. i love this site and have been a reader for years but clearly the site and forum are separate and seem to adhere to different standards. i often wish some of the folks doing the testing and article writing would periodically stop in and drop some knowledge/experience or at least moderate the mod's who feel themselves at the top of the curve. this is not a personal attack on you but man i am sure starting to see it more and more from mods in general around the forum.

First off, the Mods are basically no different from any member, we are all volunteers and don't get paid anything. I myself came here initially to help a couple people from another forum where I am an Admin (again an unpaid volunteer), that were seeking help on subjects that weren't germane to the other forums.

The team of moderators here always have their eyes out for possible new moderators to join the team when the time comes that additional mods are needed. We look for knowledge, skills, experience, level heads, etc. I know I and many others maintain a list of potential candidates. Then when the site needs to expand there is a roundtable of discussion and a list made and forwarded to the powers that be.

When problems or things like bad advice are seen and it's beyond the expertise of the Mod who sees it, they reach out to other Mods and general members for help, both for themselves and the OPs who initiated the thread in question.

As far as people that do the testing and writing dropping in, they do, as do reps from a number of the manufacturers, i.e. Kingston, Corsair, G.Skill as examples all have official tech reps that are in and out of the forums, helping members and also pointing out to the site issues they see. This input from a diverse source of contributors is what is driving the article I am currently working on, where I will be addressing many of the myths and misconceptions about DRAM.

If you have any input or questions you would be interested in seeing addressed feel free to drop me a PM, I've reached out to DRAM and mobo manufacturers (in particular as it's their support staffs that have to deal with questions daily) as well as builders, IT folks and members of the forums I frequent.

Of particular note, one thing I found interesting was that the majority of DRAM that is RMAed, as 'bad' has nothing wrong with it, it gets RMAed for two primary reasons 1) people getting higher freq DRAM than their CPU can handle (i.e. they buy high freq DRAM because they've been told if the motherboard supports the freq they are 'fine' without knowing that the Memory controller/CPU have to be able to handle it - like someone taking a AMD Phenom 955 and trying to run 2400 DRAM on a Crosshair Formula mobo, only to find yes, that nice expensive 2400 DRAM will run (maybe) albeit at 1333

2) people trying to mix it with existing DRAM - then when it won't play with the old, users decide it's bad, because they've been told "sure it's fine to mix DRAM"

Another popular one today, is people wanting new DRAM for an older mobo - and not knowing the newer lines of DRAM use higher density memory chips (4Gb) vs the older chip design (2Gb) that the mobo can support.

i say it all the time here when folks talk about bad reviews and such, most of the issues are user error and not quality issues.

i like to explain it as, if this was truly a horrible product it would be reviewed as such from the the tech sites and be common knowledge all over that it's just a bad product. not to say all rma's are not worthy but you and i both know, many do not know what they are buying. that is why i spend time here to help prevent issues for people who care enough to ask first.

as for becoming a mod, i did it in another lifetime and could not see myself doing it again. once i stopped doing all the drugs, it was just not as much fun. thankless, mind numbing and clearly stressful. as i said, i am seeing things lately that concern me from the mods here. of course not all but many. biggest thing seems to be expressing themselves. if your going to object or warn someone, you need to be very specific and careful in what you say. you came at me wrong and as you can see i will respond in kind. i have served in the military, been a public servent in numerous positions and know what it means to take an ass chewing and have done it myself. but come at it wrong and all it will do is amplify.

keep that in mind especially if you feel i have done something wrong. i can take being corrected or differed with but i won't be disrespected.

have a great day and happy holidays

Everyone needs to word things as best as possible, not just mods. Here I posted that mixing DRAM can be problematic which was addressed to those before me - you followed that post immediately with "mixing DRAM is fine". Respect is a two way street, if you are going to disrespect others, don't be surprised when they respond in kind... I've found that examining the arguments of others, if well stated, explained and defined, can often be beneficial, though purely dripping sarcastic comments go nowhere.