Are these RAM modules interchangeable?

**Done_Fishin** · 01-31-2007, 10:38 AM

I am currently using 4 pieces of (Transcend) RAM 256MB DDR DIMM 3200-400.

I have been given 2 pcs of Kingston KVR400X64C3A/512 (512MB) RAM

Am I correct in assuming that I can swap out one pair of my 256's for this new pair ?

Will I have any problems ?
Not worried if the 512's drop down in speed but would prefer not to put in slower memory and drop my 256's speed. I have no games applications that are running except that my PC is used as a gateway for 3 other pc's to a 1024/256 KBPS DSL connection to the internet.

**TheMatt** · 01-31-2007, 12:56 PM

Just from looking at the model number of the kingston RAM, it looks like it is DDR400. Is that correct? That is the speed of your current RAM, and they will operate at 400 MHz since they are the same speed.

**Done_Fishin** · 01-31-2007, 01:48 PM

I don't know much about this pair, I was given them as used but working. I did a google search for the RAM type KVR400X64C3A and didn't come up with any satisfactory results. In my mind I was thinking I have 3200's ..
I note that the DIMMS are doublesided and have a total of 16 chips (8 each side) but technology is changing so fast these days that it's difficult to keep up let alone research it properly without some help. I remember the days when you could swap a Flash BIOS ROM with a programmed EPROM and the PC would still work, it was only a few years ago, now that has all changed.

wrt the RAM I haven't tried swapping them yet since I am in need of having the puter open for network access by everyone else. I just wanted to be sure that I wasn't going degrade my system by doing so.

I managed to find a bit of info about the 512's that says it's 3-3-3 whilst on the packaging for the 256's it says 2.5-3-3.
Had I seen somewhere that 512's are 3200-400 I wouldn't have bothered asking anything here .. unfortunately I didn't see that info anywhere.

**8210GUY** · 01-31-2007, 02:04 PM

>>>Here<<< would appear to be your new ram, and going by that you have 512MB 400MHz DDR Non-ECC CL3 (3-3-3) DIMM ram, so as said it should work together, mind you 2 points I'll quickly make, first is run them as pairs so they aren't mis-matched, and secondly I have had boards in the past hat were extremely finicky about it's ram only accepting certain size modules, so it may be worth seeing if your motherboard manual has any mention of such a thing to save headaches further down the road, took me 3 sets of ram, an understandable\helpful shop and motherboard tech support to finally figure out the board was rejecting any configurations of ram it didn't like, from memory they had to be in multiples of 8 for it to accept them lol.

**Done_Fishin** · 01-31-2007, 02:25 PM

Thanks for the help guys, I now know that I shouldn't be wasting my time trying although there are no guarantees that it will work. I'll remove all 4 banks first and justb run with the new stuff in pairde banks. When I am happy that it is running I will add back one of the other pairs and see if I am having any compatability problems.

**Done_Fishin** · 02-02-2007, 01:38 PM

I got around top checking this out tonight
First I doidn't do what I said I was goinf to do , I removed a single pair of 256's in the first slots, added the 512's and was then upset when I only saw 1024 MB during POST.
I removed the second pair of 256's and replaced them with the first pair I had removed, but no change .. I though to myself that singles & doubles DON'T mix.
I removed the 256's and powered on again. This time I only saw 512MB .. suspicious ...
I tried them one at a time seeing only 512 then tried with both together again. I saw 1024 MB pop up, so thought bad contact added a pair of 256's whilst adding Mentest86 Floppy to the drive, saw 15xxMB before the floppy booted and then the failures started showing ... Shut down removed the 512's & replaced the memories as they used to be .. Memest86ed the cards to be sure all OK .. then rebooted into Windows
I reckon if I get a good pair of cards then I should be able to use the mix .. but I'll give tyhe other cards a good test before I procedd any further.
The 512's are Kingston & lifetime guarantee. Will I need to hold the proof of purchase if I want to RMA them?

JorisS · 02-02-2007, 03:17 PM

Did you check what configs your motherboard supports?

**8210GUY** · 02-02-2007, 03:36 PM

Well as I've never dealt with them I can only guess, I would say yes, always assume they want a receipt and you'll never go wrong, but they may well take it without, I can't say personally, but I'm guessing the motherboard your trying to use them in is not the one listed in your specs ? if so let us know the model and we can try to see for you, but if it is the one in your specs it says the following, hope it helps.

Quote:

Memory Configuration
This mainboard provides three 168 pin 3.3V PC133 un-buffered/buffered DIMM sockets to
support a flexible memory size ranging from 8MB up to 1.5GB for SDRAM or from 8MB up to
768MB for EDO memory. PC66/PC100/PC133MHz SDRAM with SPD , 66MHz EDO DIMMs
and later memory VCM (Virtual Channel Memory) SDRAM are supported, The following set
of rules allows optimum configurations.
l Possible SDRAM DIMM memory sizes are 16MB, 32MB, 64MB, 128MB, 256MB, 512MB in
each DIMM socket.
l Possible EDO DIMM memory sizes are 16MB, 32MB, 64MB, 128MB, 256MB in each DIMM
socket.
l Processor with 66MHz FSB should be paired with PC66, PC100, PC133 SDRAM
processor with 100MHz FSB should be paired with either PC100 or PC133 SDRAM,
processor with 133MHz FSB should be paired only with PC133 SDRAM.
l supports Suspend to RAM

**Done_Fishin** · 02-03-2007, 02:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 8210GUY

I'm guessing the motherboard your trying to use them in is not the one listed in your specs ?

quite right , it's the system under my signature ASUS P4S800D, currently with 4 sticks of DDR 400 - 256MB one pair is jetway and the other transcend. Working ithout showing any signs of problem (touch wood)

**Done_Fishin** · 02-03-2007, 02:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JorisS

Did you check what configs your motherboard supports?

Front Side Bus 800 / 533 / 400 MHz

Memory 4 x 184-pin DIMM Sockets support max. 4GB unbuffered non-ECC
PC3200/2700/2100/1600 DDR SDRAM memory
Dual-channel memory architecture

JorisS · 02-03-2007, 03:57 AM

I dowloaded the manual to your motherboard from Asus and looked up the info about memory (page 1-11). Here's the page, but to be honest I don't fully understand it

:

There some additional info on page 1-10.

So either you run with 1 DIMM, or you use dual channel is what I make of it?

Make sure you have them in the proper slots (same colour).

Sorry, can't really make much more of it.

**Done_Fishin** · 02-03-2007, 05:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JorisS

I dowloaded the manual to your motherboard from Asus and looked up the info about memory (page 1-11). Here's the page, but to be honest I don't fully understand it

:

There some additional info on page 1-10.

So either you run with 1 DIMM, or you use dual channel is what I make of it?

Make sure you have them in the proper slots (same colour).

Sorry, can't really make much more of it.

Hi Joris

Manuals are something I have been using for the last couple of decades .. I am sure it's where the RTFM phrase started .. Thanks for taking time to dig into my problem though and here is a short educational trip for you too .. you may well need it later when trying to figure out your own board problems ..

I've modified your picture to show my memory sticks highlighted with yellow and a red arrow pointing to them. The Transcend & JetRAM are more or less identical except that one set of boards have an extra Chip for parity but that hasn't been enabled in BIOS. parity checking costs time ..

In table 1 we are shown how we can use a single stick of single channel memory. It shows that the memory stick may be inserted into any memory slot, and should be recognised. There is no requirement (as in some motherboards) to use a specific slot first.

In Table 2 we are shown where we can use "pairs" of identical RAM in order to make use of DDR technology. We should use slots which are of the same colour. It doesn't make any difference which colour we use as long as we use both at the same time. If we do this we will be able to use DDR memory in Dual Channel mode, which will effectively increase our memory access time.

When I was checking my sticks, as pairs, I was making sure that all memory was inserted as per table 2. In fact my current memory is installed as per table 2 with all 4 slots populated, ie installed, and each manufacturers pair is installed in the same colour slot.
When I checked out the memories individually I put the stick in the first BLUE slot closest the CPU or DIMM A1 (BLUE).

The Notes below table 2 tell me that I can install pairs of sticks with different sizes ie 2 * 256MB plus 2 * 512MB in DDR mode provided I keep the pairs in the same coloured slots. That is also what I had done.

Hope this helps you to understand what I have been doing and might help you also to understand what you may have to do later should you get into this state. I was justb trying to confirm that I wasn't going to get any problems by mixing, since although theory is fine, a dose of experience cannot be beaten to understand the real situation.

This is the mobo and what you might not be able to see is that the memeory slots are coloured blue, black, blue, black from the CPU.

JorisS · 02-03-2007, 05:15 AM

Thanks for the explanation

I guess I misinterpreted your problem/post somewhat, I thought you cannot get 2x 512Mb + 2x 256Mb to work and show as 1536 Mb. But now I'm not sure you really did try or not.

From the manual (and your explanation) it should obviously work anyways.

**Done_Fishin** · 02-03-2007, 05:35 AM

My original question was whether I was able to replace 2 of my 256MB sticks with 512MB sticks and whether I was likely to have any problems. The response was more or less positive and I got some more info about the 512MB's that I was missing .. I was guessing that they were DDR400 but I wasn't sure.
I tried only to find that I had a duff stick or two of 512MB's .. which is unfortunate. Since they are labelled as "lifetime" I am assuming that I should be able to RMA them for a pair of new sticks. However I was given them and do not have the reciept. I am hoping that won't affect the guarantee.

Don't worry about misunderstanding the questions, it's easy to do! It's also easy to assume that we know whet we are asking for and that everyone else will/should understand too!

Thanks for taking the time to look and give your input. If you have also understood something new from this then the post was not wasted at all ..

**8210GUY** · 02-03-2007, 07:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Done_Fishin

In Table 2 we are shown where we can use "pairs" of identical RAM in order to make use of DDR technology. We should use slots which are of the same colour. It doesn't make any difference which colour we use as long as we use both at the same time. If we do this we will be able to use DDR memory in Dual Channel mode, which will effectively increase our memory access time.

That was exactly what I was on about in an earlier reply about making sure they were paired up, logically the 512 sticks should be in the blue slots and the 256 sticks in the black so they are each paired, or possibly vice versa just to test it's not being over fussy, but it sounds like your already doing that, so if that isn't working you may be forced to choose whether to use them and leave the others out, or carry on as you were prior to this, shame it's playing you up

**Kalim** · 02-03-2007, 11:56 AM

Make note that your Kingston RAM VDIMM is 2.6V.

If you try it and it works, you won't have a problem!

To know or sure before trying.. we're on fuzzy lines.

01-31-2007, 10:38 AM	#1 (permalink)
Done_Fishin Moderator Hardware Team Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Brit living in Greece Posts: 4,935 OS: Win ME, Win XP Pro SP3, Ubuntu 7.04, Mepis 6.5 My System	Are these RAM modules interchangeable? I am currently using 4 pieces of (Transcend) RAM 256MB DDR DIMM 3200-400. I have been given 2 pcs of Kingston KVR400X64C3A/512 (512MB) RAM Am I correct in assuming that I can swap out one pair of my 256's for this new pair ? Will I have any problems ? Not worried if the 512's drop down in speed but would prefer not to put in slower memory and drop my 256's speed. I have no games applications that are running except that my PC is used as a gateway for 3 other pc's to a 1024/256 KBPS DSL connection to the internet. __________________ D_F How to mark your thread as solved

01-31-2007, 12:56 PM	#2 (permalink)
TheMatt Moderator, Hardware Team Join Date: May 2006 Location: Boston Posts: 13,693 OS: Win 3.1, 98, NT 4.0, XP Debian 4.0, Kubuntu 6.06 My System Blog Entries: 3	Just from looking at the model number of the kingston RAM, it looks like it is DDR400. Is that correct? That is the speed of your current RAM, and they will operate at 400 MHz since they are the same speed. __________________ - Matt M - KB1OSC - Folding@Home 85015 If TSF has helped you, please consider donating. If I have stopped responding to a thread, feel free to send me a PM with a link to the thread. It is advisable to subscribe to threads so you will receive updates when replies are posted. You can subscribe to threads from the "Thread Tools" Menu. »Memtest86 »Prime95 »UBCD »SpeedFan »NHC Personal »Everest »Sandra »PC Wizard »RivaTuner »ATi Tool Click here for Useful Articles and Guides

01-31-2007, 01:48 PM	#3 (permalink)
Done_Fishin Moderator Hardware Team Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Brit living in Greece Posts: 4,935 OS: Win ME, Win XP Pro SP3, Ubuntu 7.04, Mepis 6.5 My System	I don't know much about this pair, I was given them as used but working. I did a google search for the RAM type KVR400X64C3A and didn't come up with any satisfactory results. In my mind I was thinking I have 3200's .. I note that the DIMMS are doublesided and have a total of 16 chips (8 each side) but technology is changing so fast these days that it's difficult to keep up let alone research it properly without some help. I remember the days when you could swap a Flash BIOS ROM with a programmed EPROM and the PC would still work, it was only a few years ago, now that has all changed. wrt the RAM I haven't tried swapping them yet since I am in need of having the puter open for network access by everyone else. I just wanted to be sure that I wasn't going degrade my system by doing so. I managed to find a bit of info about the 512's that says it's 3-3-3 whilst on the packaging for the 256's it says 2.5-3-3. Had I seen somewhere that 512's are 3200-400 I wouldn't have bothered asking anything here .. unfortunately I didn't see that info anywhere. __________________ D_F How to mark your thread as solved

01-31-2007, 02:25 PM	#5 (permalink)
Done_Fishin Moderator Hardware Team Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Brit living in Greece Posts: 4,935 OS: Win ME, Win XP Pro SP3, Ubuntu 7.04, Mepis 6.5 My System	Thanks for the help guys, I now know that I shouldn't be wasting my time trying although there are no guarantees that it will work. I'll remove all 4 banks first and justb run with the new stuff in pairde banks. When I am happy that it is running I will add back one of the other pairs and see if I am having any compatability problems. __________________ D_F How to mark your thread as solved

02-02-2007, 01:38 PM	#6 (permalink)
Done_Fishin Moderator Hardware Team Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Brit living in Greece Posts: 4,935 OS: Win ME, Win XP Pro SP3, Ubuntu 7.04, Mepis 6.5 My System	I got around top checking this out tonight First I doidn't do what I said I was goinf to do , I removed a single pair of 256's in the first slots, added the 512's and was then upset when I only saw 1024 MB during POST. I removed the second pair of 256's and replaced them with the first pair I had removed, but no change .. I though to myself that singles & doubles DON'T mix. I removed the 256's and powered on again. This time I only saw 512MB .. suspicious ... I tried them one at a time seeing only 512 then tried with both together again. I saw 1024 MB pop up, so thought bad contact added a pair of 256's whilst adding Mentest86 Floppy to the drive, saw 15xxMB before the floppy booted and then the failures started showing ... Shut down removed the 512's & replaced the memories as they used to be .. Memest86ed the cards to be sure all OK .. then rebooted into Windows I reckon if I get a good pair of cards then I should be able to use the mix .. but I'll give tyhe other cards a good test before I procedd any further. The 512's are Kingston & lifetime guarantee. Will I need to hold the proof of purchase if I want to RMA them? __________________ D_F How to mark your thread as solved

01-31-2007, 02:04 PM	#4 (permalink)
8210GUY TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Aug 2006 Posts: 1,566 OS: xp Pro	>>>Here<<< would appear to be your new ram, and going by that you have 512MB 400MHz DDR Non-ECC CL3 (3-3-3) DIMM ram, so as said it should work together, mind you 2 points I'll quickly make, first is run them as pairs so they aren't mis-matched, and secondly I have had boards in the past hat were extremely finicky about it's ram only accepting certain size modules, so it may be worth seeing if your motherboard manual has any mention of such a thing to save headaches further down the road, took me 3 sets of ram, an understandable\helpful shop and motherboard tech support to finally figure out the board was rejecting any configurations of ram it didn't like, from memory they had to be in multiples of 8 for it to accept them lol.

02-02-2007, 03:17 PM	#7 (permalink)
JorisS Registered User Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 119 OS: Windows Vista Ultimate My System	Did you check what configs your motherboard supports?

02-03-2007, 03:57 AM	#11 (permalink)
JorisS Registered User Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 119 OS: Windows Vista Ultimate My System	I dowloaded the manual to your motherboard from Asus and looked up the info about memory (page 1-11). Here's the page, but to be honest I don't fully understand it : There some additional info on page 1-10. So either you run with 1 DIMM, or you use dual channel is what I make of it? Make sure you have them in the proper slots (same colour). Sorry, can't really make much more of it.

02-03-2007, 05:15 AM	#13 (permalink)
JorisS Registered User Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 119 OS: Windows Vista Ultimate My System	Thanks for the explanation I guess I misinterpreted your problem/post somewhat, I thought you cannot get 2x 512Mb + 2x 256Mb to work and show as 1536 Mb. But now I'm not sure you really did try or not. From the manual (and your explanation) it should obviously work anyways.

02-03-2007, 05:35 AM	#14 (permalink)
Done_Fishin Moderator Hardware Team Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Brit living in Greece Posts: 4,935 OS: Win ME, Win XP Pro SP3, Ubuntu 7.04, Mepis 6.5 My System	My original question was whether I was able to replace 2 of my 256MB sticks with 512MB sticks and whether I was likely to have any problems. The response was more or less positive and I got some more info about the 512MB's that I was missing .. I was guessing that they were DDR400 but I wasn't sure. I tried only to find that I had a duff stick or two of 512MB's .. which is unfortunate. Since they are labelled as "lifetime" I am assuming that I should be able to RMA them for a pair of new sticks. However I was given them and do not have the reciept. I am hoping that won't affect the guarantee. Don't worry about misunderstanding the questions, it's easy to do! It's also easy to assume that we know whet we are asking for and that everyone else will/should understand too! Thanks for taking the time to look and give your input. If you have also understood something new from this then the post was not wasted at all .. __________________ D_F How to mark your thread as solved Last edited by Done_Fishin : 02-03-2007 at 05:39 AM.

02-03-2007, 11:56 AM	#16 (permalink)
Kalim Roaming To Help Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 5,553 OS: Many	Make note that your Kingston RAM VDIMM is 2.6V. If you try it and it works, you won't have a problem! To know or sure before trying.. we're on fuzzy lines.