[etox]

I just bought a Gigabyte K8N-Pro SLI motherboard. It has 4 ram slots, 2 purple and 2 orange for dual channel. I had 2x 256mb sticks (DDR400) running in it single channel. I bought a 512mb stick (still DDR400) but no matter what combination I put the RAM in the colored slots, I can only get a max of 786mb of ram starting up. I can get 786 out of 1x 256 and 1x512 too. In some combinations its 512 and in 1 or 2 it was 256.

So 1 or more sticks of ram just gets disabled for some reason with 3 sticks. Is my motherboard incapable of using 3 ram sticks? There is no way in the bios to turn off dual channel (bios version F4).

I noticed that the 512 stick is dual side, while the 256 are single side. I dont know anything about dual or single sided ram though. Will I have to buy another $60 stick of 512 just to get my first one working?

 

[whodat]

welcome to tsf
is the 512 on the qvl list on your motherboard site? [qualified ram]

 

[Volt-Schwibe]

on the gigabyte K8N it will disable ram in certain instances.

although i don't see an issue with your 512 meg ram and the board, there may be an issue between the 256's and the 512.

if i am correct, you have to use either 1, 2 or 4 of the slots, not 3.

what i suggest here, is buy another identical 512.

then you may even manage to make it run dual channel.

 

[Volt-Schwibe]

ok, it seems that it does in fact matter which slots you use.

here is a link to the manual in case you don't have one. http://america.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/FileList/Manual/manual_k8nusli_e.pdf

here is a picture i found in the manual.

 

[etox]

Thanks a lot. I do have the manual, but I figured there may be a way to get the ram working, since that says it would cause the system to be unable to boot, which it does fine. I guess it just disables 1 slot instead. Oh well, now I have to spend another $65... as if a $500 upgrade to my computer wasnt enough!

Again, thanks for all your help. Pretty quick replies!

 

[Volt-Schwibe]

in the meantime, while you are waiting for that ram, it wouldn't hurt to just run the 512.

sorry i couldn't come up with any better advice.

the more i read that chart, i see that to use 1 ram will work in either slot 1 or 3, and to use 2 ram will work in slots 1 and 2 or 1 and 3 or 3 and 4 and that there just isn't any way to insert 3 sticks.