Two sticks of RAM, no dual channel

[quickie]

Hi Everyone,

Ok this is just weird. My computer, it appears, is plagued with problems. The latest:

I had two sticks of Kingston 1GB DDR2 RAM, both PC-5300. They looked physically different but were rated the same specs - and worked in dual channel mode just fine.

Anyways, I RMA’ed one of them because it was giving random errors (confirmed with Memtest). The new RAM stick came in the mail and after installing it, the computer shows me I’m running single channel?!

The things I’ve done so far:
- ran Memtest over night, no problems
- Tried changing slots from B1, B2 to A1,A2 (putting the RAM in the slots as per the manual instructions)
- Putting the RAM in A1, B1
- Putting in one stick, booting in windows. Turn off. Installed the second piece of RAM
- BIOS update to latest version

Um. What’s going on here? Btw, one stick is double-sided while the other is single sided. Don’t know if that makes a difference.

Any help would be great!
Thanks.

 

[Tyrael]

You should buy both stick with the same serial - code.
But, plz check that the pins from the memory are not chiped or damaged!

From Tyrael.

 

[HookeyStreet]

Hi Everyone,

Ok this is just weird. My computer, it appears, is plagued with problems. The latest:

I had two sticks of Kingston 1GB DDR2 RAM, both PC-5300. They looked physically different but were rated the same specs - and worked in dual channel mode just fine.

Anyways, I RMA’ed one of them because it was giving random errors (confirmed with Memtest). The new RAM stick came in the mail and after installing it, the computer shows me I’m running single channel?!

The things I’ve done so far:
- ran Memtest over night, no problems
- Tried changing slots from B1, B2 to A1,A2 (putting the RAM in the slots as per the manual instructions)
- Putting the RAM in A1, B1
- Putting in one stick, booting in windows. Turn off. Installed the second piece of RAM
- BIOS update to latest version

Um. What’s going on here? Btw, one stick is double-sided while the other is single sided. Don’t know if that makes a difference.

Any help would be great!
Thanks.

I would say the new stick and the old stick are no longer a matching pair

 

[Tyrael]

I think the old sticks are damage or too old to cope with the other ram stick.

 

[keakar]

im guessing you bought two single sticks instead of a set of two matching sticks or they would have or should have rma both as a set. so when you replaced the one stick it is not a "match" to the other stick so you have a few choices here and that is:

1 get them to send you a matching stick for your existing stick

2 buy another stick and find which stick it matches, keep those two and sell the third

3 sell those two sticks and buy a matching "set" of two sticks

but either way you need to match them somehow.

 

[mitsirfishi]

have you tried other combonations some boards ive had in the past are funny with ram you have channel a and b which will be like slots 1 &2 and 3&4

list of combo

slots 1&3
slots 2&4
slots 1&2
slots 3&4
slots 1&4
slots 2&3

 

[Sasqui]

Did you look in your BIOS for a setting to enable it?

You might want to check each sticks "stats" independantly using CPUz - perhaps that'll give you some idea...

 

[keakar]

Btw, one stick is double-sided while the other is single sided. Don’t know if that makes a difference.

yes im pretty sure it does because if it has chips only on one side then that stick will usually not have as many chips as the other stick. my understanding about compatability is they both need the same number of chips to be compatable with each other.

some older boards only used one side of the slot and so the chips were all on one side but i dont think that matters on the newer boards because a one sided memory slot is no longer used so they are all using both sides of the slot to read memory.

 

[Thermopylae_480]

Clear CMOS.

 

[Athlon2K15]

if i was you i would use SPDtool and write the spd from the newer module to the old or even the other way Around..

 

[quickie]

I cleared the CMOS, no luck. Also tried putting the RAM is all the combinations I could think of. (Btw, the RAM looks undamaged as far as I can tell. I ran Memtest again, it passed no problems)

It's weird, because the new stick of RAM looks physically identical to the bad RAM it replaced. (although one was manufactured in China and the other, Taiwan)

Oh well. I guess I’m going to have to live with it. I don’t see myself buying a new pair of RAM sticks for a machine I mainly use for office applications.

To clarify, SPDTool is used for changing RAM timings? The two sticks I currently have are rated at the same speed and timing.

 

[KennyT772]

The sticks need to have the same pcb, same modules, and same spd in order to run dual channel. If there is any difference in any of the 3 it usually won't work, although if the chips and spd are the same sometimes different pcbs will run dual.

 

[ktr]

I have two 512 patriots that have the same speed, same timings, but different chip and pcb...and it works in dual channel just fine.

 

[quickie]

The sticks need to have the same pcb, same modules, and same spd in order to run dual channel. If there is any difference in any of the 3 it usually won't work, although if the chips and spd are the same sometimes different pcbs will run dual.

ok cool thanks, just making sure

 

[quickie]

I have two 512 patriots that have the same speed, same timings, but different chip and pcb...and it works in dual channel just fine.

Previously, I had two 1GB Kingston RAM sticks. Like you, everything was the same except the mem. chip and pcb layout. And it ran in dual channel mode.

But now, with the new RAM stick, it won't run in dual channel anymore.