OT (sort of): Hardware ?

[Eric Shubert]

Mark Jarvis wrote:
> 
> With the holiday season over, I decided to upgrade my system from 1GB to 
> 2GB RAM. The memory I had was DDR2-800 Memory Expert from Adata. The 
> place I'd originally bought the motherboard & memory from no longer 
> carried that brand, but their tech guy said that other brands, for 
> example Kingston, should work with it with no problem. (Yeah, Right!) I 
> had a gift card from Fry's burning a hole in my pocket, so I got a 1GB 
> DDR2-800 Kingston stick at Fry's.
> 
> Now the problem. Either stick alone shows as DDR2-800 in POST. Both 
> together show as DDR2-667. GRRRRR!
> 
> I can :
>     1) Live with it. It's only a 16-17% drop in speed.
> 
>     2) Take it back, get another Kingston or another brand (Patriot?), 
> cross my fingers & hope.
> 
>     3) Take it back and order a matching Adata stick online.
> 
>     4) Buy another Kingston 1GB to make a pair and try to sell the old 
> Adata for $10 or $15.
> 
> Any suggestions?

I'm not an expert on memory, but I'll chime in anyhow. ;)

Is this a dual channel MB? If so, I would try putting them on separate 
channels (different colored slots). My understanding is that matching 
memory sticks for dual channel mode (cards in samed colored slots) is 
hit and miss, even w/in the same brand.

That being said, if you decide to try to get back to 800, I would go the 
Kingston route. I recently received a 1G Kingston stick in a trade 
transaction that was bad. Kingston customer service was very good. The 
stick had a lifetime warranty, and they replaced it with no problem (I 
only had to pay shipping). I asked at the time about pairing it up for 
dual channel use, and they said that if I had 2 Kingston sticks that 
didn't work together in dual channel mode, that they would replace them 
with 2 that were paired. Again, I would only need to pay shipping.

If you want that kind of service, make sure your ram has a lifetime 
warranty. Some does, some doesn't.

-- 
-Eric 'shubes'