Tom's Hardware > Forum > Motherboards & Memory > Memory > Had 3GB, Bought 6 more and only have 6 rather then 9 ?

Had 3GB, Bought 6 more and only have 6 rather then 9 ?

Forum Motherboards & Memory : Memory - Had 3GB, Bought 6 more and only have 6 rather then 9 ?

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Built a P6T i7 system last year and got 3 1GB Kingston Chips. The other day there was a good sale on ram so I got a 6GB kit of Patriot Viper. I was thinking when I put this in that I would get 9GB of ram but what happened is the "new" 6 works but my previous 3 doesn't so I have a total of 6. They are both DD3 and rated at 1333 speed. I also looked in the manual and when all slots are populated there doesn't seem to be an issue of pairing. Don't know if it's just something weird with the brands not mixing or something else. Suggestions ?


Thanks

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Well, I am not really sure, other than you have broken rule #1 of memory upgrading, do not mix types and brands. Why on earth would you need 9 gig?
I know that this does not answer your question, or find a direct answer to your problem, but why not take just take out the the 3 gig of Kingston? You do have them all paired in the correct slots?

Reply to jitpublisher

From what I can see as long as all the slots are occupied it doesn't matter how they are paired.
Not that I need the 9GB but it's just I hate to waste the old 3GB that I already had.


Reply to jkmiec

jkmiec wrote :

From what I can see as long as all the slots are occupied it doesn't matter how they are paired.
Not that I need the 9GB but it's just I hate to waste the old 3GB that I already had.


Yes, it does matter what slots they are in, that is why they are different colors.
You cannot pair a 1 gig stick with 2 gig stick in the same bank and run dual, or in your case, triple channel, and in this case, it may keep 1 of the sticks from even working.


Message edited by jitpublisher on 09-11-2009 at 03:24:42 PM
Reply to jitpublisher

If you have 6 slots for ram I'm assuming you have a motherboard with triple channel memory, which means yes you HAVE to have them paired in the right slots. This means 3 of the same sticks in slot 1, 3 and 5. and 3 of the same sticks in slots 2, 4 and 6.

Reply to illegalmonkey

The board allows for either dual or triple channel, depending on how you put it in - what type in what slots. Supports only 2 or 4 slots as dual and 3 or 6 when triple.

 

If you had the first 3 slots filled previously, I don't know how the memory was addressed. But the basic rule is to put 3 similar modules in every other slot. So you'd put them as 1GB, 2GB, 1GB, 2GB, 1GB, 2GB. Or the reverse - might make a performance difference?

 

Assuming you have them now as 1GB, 1GB, 1GB, 2GB, 2GB, 2GB then you've filled two banks of dual channel, total of 4 modules and the other two are discarded. So that explains why the total is now 6GB - it's 1 bank of 1GB modules and 1 bank of 2GB modules. And only 2 banks are possible with dual-channel

 

So... just put the modules in so they are alike in every other slot. You'll get 2 banks of triple-channel - 1 with 3GBs and 1 with 6GBs for a total of 9GBs. That's assuming that the board support triple channel memory of 2 different sizes, I didn't see anything about it - and see rule #1 above!

 

Asus M/B manual - the copy I looked at DID seem to make an issue of pairing:
http://home.roadrunner.com/~expertpc/mem1.jpg
http://home.roadrunner.com/~expertpc/mem2.jpg


Message edited by mongox on 09-11-2009 at 03:39:13 PM
Reply to mongox

Thanks I'll give that a try.

Reply to jkmiec
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