Mixed frequency DDR4 Ram

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FlashSA

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I purchased a new built up PC a few weeks ago with 8gb of 2600mhz Kingston DDR4 Ram.

Machine runs well but I noticed my usage calls for a bit more RAM.

Today I went back to the PC shop and asked for another 8gb stick to match. They said they only had Transcend 3200mhz and assured me that it would lower to match the Kingston, although I really wanted matchy matchy.

I installed the new stick, booted and the PC never picked it up - Windows still showed 8gb.

I then swapped the Transcend and Kingston in the slots, booted and the BIOS noticed a hardware change. When I got into Windows it showed the full 16gb.

All went well for about 3hrs until randomly, the machine just locked up. Completely unresponsive so I had to off/on. It then rebooted and behaved fine until the end of the day.

I have never had a lockup since getting the new pc.

Could it be a once off random thing or is this new RAM mismatch going to give me grey hairs?
 
Depending on your board/CPU you'll most likely need to put them in certain slots, in a certain order.
What's your CPU & Motherboard models?

Mixed frequency isn't the end of the world, but it also isn't great..
Make sure you aren't running any forced timings/speeds in your BIOS..
 
Normally shouldn’t be a problem, go into the bios and make sure all the ram settings are on auto
 
It should just be running all the RAM at the slowest speed, but it could be that the RAM modules are too different in terms of their memory module layout.

as airborne and Faux_Grey mentioned, check in your BIOS that all the RAM settings are set to auto

If you are running windows 11, check if your memory is running at the lower speed with Task manager.
Under the performance tab, then click on memory
1676581817494.png
 
Thanks for the replies. I confirmed in the BIOS that the RAM speed is set to auto and setting the modules to run at 2666mhz.

Will see how today goes with the machine. I am hoping it was a once off glitch. If it happens again, they are going to be forced to take their 3200 RAM back and I will rather wait for an exact match second stick.
 
It should work, but it is not ideal. If you've got an AMD machine memory timings, frequency and such are a lot more important. I would get another stick of the 3200mhz memory and sell the 2600 ddr4 is cheap as chips right now
 
FlashSA said:
Thanks for the replies. I confirmed in the BIOS that the RAM speed is set to auto and setting the modules to run at 2666mhz.

Will see how today goes with the machine. I am hoping it was a once off glitch. If it happens again, they are going to be forced to take their 3200 RAM back and I will rather wait for an exact match second stick.
Click to expand...

This technique may not be needed with modern motherboards, but in the past you would have had to put the slowest ram in the first ram slot so that subsequent ram would match the speed of the first. Your board would have sequentially marked ram slots so the first slot would have been either "1" or "A" or "A1".
 
FlashSA said:
Here's the board and CPU spec
View attachment 1477653
Click to expand...
There's your problem, AMD and memory is very fussy. Get rid of the 2600 stick and get a matching 3200 stick, the entire AMD architecture relies on the inifinty fabric, also this looks like you bought it from Evetech.
 
Lupus said:
There's your problem, AMD and memory is very fussy. Get rid of the 2600 stick and get a matching 3200 stick, the entire AMD architecture relies on the inifinty fabric, also this looks like you bought it from Evetech.
Click to expand...
Thanks. I bought from a long standing PC retailer here in East London.

I have notified the owner and await WhatsApp feedback whether to monitor things or remove the stick and return it.

Bottom line is I was not keen on taking a different stick, but the guy who physically built my machine said it would be fine. So they need to carry the can here. I don't have time to stuff around on this.
 
FlashSA said:
Thanks. I bought from a long standing PC retailer here in East London.

I have notified the owner and await WhatsApp feedback whether to monitor things or remove the stick and return it.

Bottom line is I was not keen on taking a different stick, but the guy who physically built my machine said it would be fine. So they need to carry the can here. I don't have time to stuff around on this.
Click to expand...
Yeah he doesn't know AMD machines then
 
Ouch, yeah
that's a CPU you probably want matching RAM with in order to achieve any good amount of performance, ryzen performs poorly with slow memory.


Your easiest way to try and achieve stability would be to set your memory speed as slow as possible (2133Mhz), with the highest-rank module first, then slowly turn up the speed until the system starts falling over.

It's important to note that it's not just Mhz speed that's important to match
you also need to match:
  • CAS latencies - these are the timings you might see written on the modules, usually the first handful of timings that look like 16-18-18-38 - this is the delay or latency the module will experience when reading/writing to the memory chips in certain data patterns.

  • Memory rank - is it a quad, dual or single-rank module? This is also sometimes written on the memory in the form of 1Rx4, 2Rx4, 4Rx4. This will be the layout & access methods of the memory chips on the module. 2Rx4 will have two ranks of 4 memory chips on the module for example. 1Rx8 will have 8 memory chips in a single rank.

  • Chip sizing - really this ties to the capacity of the RAM module, keeping the same capacity is important, but as you can see from above memory ranking, two different 8G RAM sticks might not have the same chip layout or sizing, one might use 4x chips of 2G, another might use 8x chips of 1G, and another might use 2x ranks of 4x 1G chips.

Wootware seem to have a pretty good deal right now on 3200mhz 16G set right now.

G.Skill F4-3200C16D-16GVKB Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4-3200MHz CL16 1.35V Black Desktop Memory - Wootware

Buy G.Skill F4-3200C16D-16GVKB Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4-3200MHz CL16 1.35V Black Desktop Memory at Wootware with fast shipping & superb service.
www.wootware.co.za www.wootware.co.za
 
Retailer has ordered a new stick of Kingston to match what came with the machine. I'll hand the Transcend back when the KIngston arrives.

PC hasn't locked up again, but I still want matching sticks
 
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