Stupid memory question re I9300

Hey there,

This may be redundant but I didn't see another post about it, so here it goes:

I bought an Insiron 9300 maybe a month ago, with only 512mb ram. I did this knowing I would upgrade to 2gb in the near future. So, if I put 1 gb chip in now and another 1 gb chip in later, I am losing the dual channel. My question is does having dual channel make that much of a difference? Should I stay running on dual channel 512 (2x 256)until I can just buy 2 1gb sticks at the same time or should I get 1 1gb stick now? (Does this question make sense?)

Thanks guys,

Jonathan

 

DO you have to have both slot's full in order to benefit from dual channel? Maybe someone else can explain this.

If so, would a 1 gig chip in 1 slot and the 256 in another work? Thats what I'm using now. I put the 1gig in slot 1, and the 256 in slot2.




Jim

I9300
Pentium M 730
(1.60GHz/533MHz FBS)
1.25 gig's Dual DDR2/533MHz
128 Meg X300
80 gig HD
8X DVD -r/+rw
IntelPro wireless 2200 (802.11 b/g)WiFi

 

I have a 1G in slot A and a 256mb in B and when I check my specks in 3DMark05 it says its running duel channel.


hope this helped...

 

A Dumb Q? again, can anybody explain what is a dual channel and how does it work.

 

Here is a coversation on it, that I found somewhere:
<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>

Can someone tell me what dual channel means? If my motherboard supported dual channel and I stick a single 512mb 3200 piece of ram in and then I were to stick 2x256mb 3200 ram in. What will the difference in performance be?

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ok, dual channel ram means there are two ram pipelines to the cpu to try and help the bottleneck caused by the system bus. on all the dual channel boards i have seen if you have one stick of ram it runs in single channel mode. to get dual channel to work you have to have a matched pair of what ever ram you intend to use, like if you bought 2 sticks of 256 or 512, make sure they are the same brand and spec. install both in the same color slot, like if you put one in the blue slot, put the other in the blue slot. this will make the dual channel activate. if you mix it(one black, the other blue), it will still run just not in dual channel mode. if you decide to add more ram you will need another identical pair of ram to go in the two open slots, if you only add one more, it will see the ram but your back to single channel mode. it is very important to have the exact same chip in both slots of the same color.

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So what is the advantage of have 2 of the same ram on a motherboard that supports dual channel ram?

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the advantage is:
with two identical sticks of ram the motherboard activates dual channel , if they are not identical the system can not adjust for voltage and other differences that are caused by ram of different specs.
lets say you have 2 kingston 512 pc3200ddr. you put both on the blue slots. you have dual channel. if you are going to add more, you will have to add another matched pair(does not have to be the same as the ones on the blue strip) to the black. if you add one strip to a black slot you will detect and use the ram in single channel mode.
what the big deal is with dual channel is you have two pipelines to the processor from the ram instead of one.
the white paper explains this better then i can.
www.kingston.com/newtech/MKF_520DDRWhitepaper.pdf

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so the RAM is used more efficently?

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yeah, just to elaborate, RAM tranfsers data in "strobes". Just like a strobe light, it cycles on and off. Well, what dual channel does is offset each pipe so that one stick is strobing on, while the other is off. It is really more complicated than that, but I thought short and to the point was the way to go. hope this helps.
<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'></font id='quote'></blockquote id='quote'>

I also read somewhere that the DDR2 means a mother board with the correct chipset will run the DDR2 memory at twice it's bus speed. Hence, a DDR2 400MHz would run at 800 MHz.



Jim

I9300
Pentium M 730
(1.60GHz/533MHz FBS)
1.25 gig's Dual DDR2/533MHz
128 Meg X300
80 gig HD
8X DVD -r/+rw
IntelPro wireless 2200 (802.11 b/g)WiFi

 

i have a question 2...if i buy the 256 MB ram from dell...is there 2 slots in the laptop so u can add a 1 GB module 2 it 2 make it 1.25 GB RAM??...cuz wen i was configuring...it said 256 MB 1 dimmension and the 512 MB was 2 Dimmensions...dus that mean that there is onli 1 slot 4 the 256 MB 1 and 2 slots 4 the 512 MB 1??.. iwas thinkin about getting the 512 MB and getting the 1 GB from newegg.com from the transcend company 2 add 2 it...but if there are 2 slots 2 make it 1.25 GB RAM...then i'll configure the 256 MB 1 into it..can sum1 plz help me??[ ]

Trying 2 get a Dell Inspiron 9300 wit:1.86 GHZ Pentium M | 1 GB DDR RAM | 60 GB 7200 RPM hard drive | 256 NVidia GeForece Go 6800

 

To confuse myself even more, the DDR2 400MHz came about to speed up memory in the 800MHz bus speed Pentium 4. DDR2 400 double to 800MHz.

Now, We are running on a 533MHz bus, so in effect the DDR2 in these 533MHz chips is really redundant? You cant double the 533 to run at 1066 MHz, if your working with a 533MHz mother board bus speed to start with?





Jim

I9300
Pentium M 730
(1.60GHz/533MHz FBS)
1.25 gig's Dual DDR2/533MHz
128 Meg X300
80 gig HD
8X DVD -r/+rw
IntelPro wireless 2200 (802.11 b/g)WiFi

 

kk...thanks Jim...and would this 1 GB RAM b ok from newegg.com??
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820208024

if u go 2 the transcend site...it says that it works 4 the 9300

Trying 2 get a Dell Inspiron 9300 wit:1.86 GHZ Pentium M | 1 GB DDR RAM | 60 GB 7200 RPM hard drive | 256 NVidia GeForece Go 6800

 

Yes, there are 2 memory slots.
Thats what I did. Order it with just the 256 meg chip. Then get a 1 gig from newegg. I now have 1.25 gig running.


Jim

I9300
Pentium M 730
(1.60GHz/533MHz FBS)
1.25 gig's Dual DDR2/533MHz
128 Meg X300
80 gig HD
8X DVD -r/+rw
IntelPro wireless 2200 (802.11 b/g)WiFi

 

dus any1 no the current memory inside a 9300 wit a 256 MB RAM chip??...so i can buy another 1 4 dual support

Inspiron 9300 wit:1.86 GHZ Pentium M | Mayb a 1.25 GB DDR RAM | 60 GB 7200 RPM hard drive | 256 NVidia GeForece Go 6800

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by LuckMC11

 

kk...thanks a lot Jim [ ]

Inspiron 9300 wit:1.86 GHZ Pentium M | Mayb a 1.25 GB DDR RAM | 60 GB 7200 RPM hard drive | 256 NVidia GeForece Go 6800

 

You can run different size memory sticks in both slots, but you will not run dual channel, thus lowering performance.

If you want 1Gig, Go buy two(See how I spell out the word?) 512MB sticks. Remove the stick that came with the laptop and set it aside. Put in each of the 512MB sticks you just bought. You will have more performance than running your 1Gig and 256MB sticks.

Dell Ispiron 9300
Pentium M 1.8
1024MB DDR2
Go6800 256MB

 

This is true, but...
First you have to think if you want to upgrade to 2 gigs later on. If so, then your going to throw away those two 512's, and have to buy two 1 gig chips. I dont think your going to notice "that" much of a speed difference with the dual channel ( 2x512's ) compared to 1.25 gig's using both slot's.