Can someone explain this?

[optinox]

Hi,

Ok when I bought the computer the guy told me I had 512 MB of DDR PC 3200 Ram, I wasn't sure if it was 1 stick or 2 sticks of 256 MB because I have never opened up the tower. When I ran this program that gave me more detailed specs on my hardware I then found out it had DIMM #1: DDR-SDRAM PC 2100-256 MB
DIMM #2: DDR-SDRAM PC 1600-256 MB. I don't know where he got the idea of it running 512 DDR PC 3200 Ram, but when I did another post on this site awhile ago I was please to hear that the ram I had was fairly good...now that I found out what I really have I'm a bit dissapointed....I don't have a need to upgrade, I was more less curious on what I could do when the time came...I think maybe the best thing I could upgrade would be my motherboard, so that when the time comes it will be able to handle the new AMD 64 bit series cpu's, then that way in a few years if 64 bit becomes standard at least my board will be able to keep up with upgrades....also what about the link you sent regarding RAM, it had a little paragraph on Rambus, is that better than DDR....because it says "The high-speed clock rate enables an effective data rate of 800 Mbits per second ( 2 bits of data are transferred per each clock cycle, data is transferred at the leading and the trailing edge of the clock.) Since the Rambus Channel is 16 bit wide [ 2 bytes], the resulting data transfer rate is up to 1.6 GBytes per second per channel (2 x 800MB/sec = 1.6GB)." In the chart it says that DDR PC 2100 is 1600 MB/sec or even PC 2400 (2400 MB/sec) isn't that higher than the Rambus memory that was shown? Here's the link...http://www.purdue.anderson.edu/Cpt/...ddr%20sdram.htm )

[elroy]

It is not likely a builder would put in PC3200 ram unless it was required due to the extra cost. Don't know what cpu you have now but the rambus ram only works on certain Pentium 4 setups.

[Sixpac_XP]

if you upgrade your motherboard you will have to buy a 64 bit CPU as well.. and memory that is supported by that motherboard.

[sweeper2]

did you ever contact him on why he gave you one stick of 2100 and one stick of 1600? that's very odd., Never have heard of pc1600 ddr? might look it up to see if i can get more info about it, i would contact the person you bought it off of and ask why it was set up this way?

[Chuckiechan]

Unless you bought if from a private party, I would check the paperwork that came with it.

If nothing else, politely inform them that maybe they made a mistake and put a stick of PC 1600 instead of 2100. No OEM would intentionally mix ram speeds, IMO...

[zepper]

Is it possible that your BIOS isn't the latest for your mobo, and maybe not reading the modules correctly?
.bh.

[John Prophet]

PC1600 is older DDR that runs at 100mhz.

If he built it a couple years ago I dont think PC3200 was even out, lol.

PC3200 runs at 400mhz

[teengeek88]

he prolly figured if they were both running at 1600 speeds youd get 3200 out of it....lol wish it worked id have myself 512 of 4200 right now