Can you mix RAM as long as its compatible with your system?

My old stick of Kingston RAM is 1 gig. I don't have any more info on it.

Recently I bought 4 gigs. I am using 2 slots for the 4 gigs of ram, but I have 2 other slots open as well. Should I just add the old RAM into the empty spot just because I can?

Kingston says they put a chip into thier RAM that talks and says "Hey I can do all this if you can do it."

So I didn't have to set any frequencies or anything like that.

Can you tell me more about your system or what motherboard you have?

Some are limited to 4GB and will have 4 slots in them. Meaning each slot will only handle a 1GB stick.

Since you are currently using 2 slots with 2GB sticks, you might have a system that will handle 8GB of memory.

Clock speeds is important because if you mix them, your system will run at the slower speed. Such as: 1 stick (800Mhz), 1 stick (400Mhz), your system will run at 400Mhz.

There may not be much notice in how your system works but there is a difference.

Unless you're running Vista 64 bit that 1 gig wont help you any with your 4 gigs in there. I would take the 1 gig out and just stick the 4 gigs in.

If the RAM is the same type yes, what I mean is this is they are both DDR2 800 one kingston the other Cosair. Sometimes you have a motherboard that can take two different types, but you can only run one type at a time. If you know what motherboard you have I could look at the specs and see.

you can also plug it in, and go to your BIOS and see if it allows it, mean you don't get strange beeps. I could be wrong, but I have never heard of two different RAMS hurting anything, the system just will not boot up, or you could run in to some stability problems.

And while I was typing this,

yeah the post above too

A lot would have to go right lol. As far as I know:

If that extra gig is a single stick, then it will not run in DDR mode (you need a pair), and most likely your two new sticks will be crippled to match. IOW, your memory speed will be cut in half.

If it is 2x512mb, then other bad things can happen:

1) Despite having 4 slots, many many motherboards will not run reliably with all 4 slots full. PC builder forums (eg) are loaded with posts from builders whose machines won't boot up with 4 sticks. Or become unstable. Only way to find out is to try.

2) Even if the memory is all (eg) DDR2/800, PC6400 . . . the sticks may have other specs that differ, eg CAS latency etc. In that case, most motherboards will automatically drop down to the speed of the slowest stick, and often even slower than that "to be safe".

3) Unless you are using Vista 64-bit, you won't use the memory anyhow.

Ok well sounds like I will not be plugging in the extra stick then. Board is P5e-VM Do Asus.

Thanks for the info!

Ryan

I used an Asus P5E-VM HDMI for an HTPC build back in January. The board gave me no issues, but I never did try it with 4 memory sticks.