PC Ram channels

Impossible to say - get the motherboard type number and google for the manual.

One thing though, it shouldn't do any harm to try all combinations. It simply wont boot at all

Without knowing the motherboard your description could be anything from the last 10 years. But, assuming it's the same type of memory (DDR3 etc) and will fit you could try putting it in DIMM3 and seeing if it works. Doubling the RAM would be a worthwhile upgrade.

Theo

I'm not near the machine currently but my basic understanding is that DIMM 1&2 are a channel each, currently 2Gb in each.

So 1&3 and 2&4 are channels.

With that in mind I'm going to put the 4 in DIMM2 and one of the 2's in DIMM3

And there's a program CPU-Z that will check what's what and whether it's running dual channel.

The short answer is stick it in, if it works, it will be better than before.

The more nuanced one is that if the motherboard supports dual channel RAM, then configuring equal sizes in both channels may also give a speed boost over and above that from simply having more RAM. The more tricky bit is that with mixtures of sizes of DIMM it can be harder to setup.

(Quite often DIMMS with sizes that are odd powers of 2 (e.g. 2, 8, 32 GB etc) they are configured with two banks of memory rather than one. So the combination of 2+2+4 will still give you 8GB of RAMin total, but possibly only 2GB of that would be able to run in dual channel mode and get an extra speed advantage.

If you find it a bit slow then adding 4GB of ram even with a mismatched size will probably help a bit. A matched pair per channel is usually better but many motherboards will tolerate an empty slot.

Check the motherboard to see what ram combos are permitted and in which slots. They can be a bit tetchy about certain mismatched combinations.

Bad luck! That is about the worst Windows version for a very long time. Picasso on a bad acid trip for its user interface.

I know, I HATE it, it's on one of the PCs in the missus shop.

I'd change it but then everything that isn't 100% right with it in future will be my fault!

depends ... have they got chips on one side, or both sides? could still depend

Is it running in 32 or 64 bit mode ?. Win 7 in 32 bit mode cannot use more than 4 Gbyte anyway (afaik). Is Win 8.1 the same ?.

Not convinced it was actually worse than 8. Which was terrible.

Agreed about more memory. A newer machine here and I found upgrading from 8 to 16 made a noticeable difference despite it already being reasonably fast and my needs fairly modest.

It could use more than 4GB (the code for PAE is shipped in all 32bit versions since Win2K) except Microsoft turns it off by a licence flag to encourage people to move to full 64bit, and to prevent some potential driver issues.

Did the above, it seems happy. Certainly more usable.

I can't agree with that. Vista was the worst. I have Windows 8.1 but with two additional programs that customise it into looking like XP, without all those ridiculous floating bits trying to look like a touch screen which it isn't.

But Windows 8.1 is as far as I'm willing to go.

ME was the worst ever, IMO

Since it's from the Win 8.1 era, if the chipset is Intel, it has Flex Memory. AMD has similarly advanced from its once-primitive state, to do similar things. AMD used to be "rigidly dual channel", where not only must DIMMs be in pairs, they had to be "beside one another" so that banks of 128 bits wide could easily be formed. This saved hardware developer time, in doing up the memory controller design (mainly saves on lots of careful testing for screwups on decode). AMD has since spent the time, to try to match its competitor in "handling just about anything thrown at it". Even mismatched DIMMs will work now.

There are two configurations. One of the configurations could be done out of ignorance (if a user just randomly plugs sticks in like the clappers).

CH0 CH1 CH0 CH1

| | | | 2GB 4GB 2GB 2GB | | | | 2GB X 4GB X

With Flex Memorhy Half of RAM this is good. 8GB measures fast, Free reported. half measures slow. Balanced channels. 8GB Free reported. Unbalanced channels.

The right hand one, only bothers a purist. An eagle-eyed i3 owner might notice that "the display updates aren't as crispy as they used to be", if you did the right hand one. Dual channel does update a few milliseconds faster, on the Intel built-in graphics. For general computing, the generous cache on the Intel processor, helps hide the sins committed by the RAM-installer-person. In the old days, some of these sins were really really bad, and you could not leave the premises before the machine owner tells you to "fix it proper".

For example, in the old days, a customer would be pissed when using this for the first time.

CH0 CH1 "How to lose friends and customers on old hardware" (Dreadful performance) | | 512M 1GB | | 2GB 4GB

The system would have started, before the new RAM adventure, with 4GB total. This is the most efficient means, before the 4GB stick came along. Sometimes, even the *factory* does not get this right!

CH0 CH1

| | 2GB 2GB | | X X

Notice, how, when fitting the new RAM, one original DIMM must be moved, as well as the new DIMM being plugged in.

CH0 CH1

| | 2GB 4GB | | 2GB X

The 4GB DIMM can also be tested by itself, to verify that it is not a "high density issue". By itself, collect evidence it registers as 4GB worth, and not some other value. On a 32 bit OS, this might report 3.2GB, so don't panic. Testing by itself, gives an unambiguous response. In the old days, a certain slot (like a toaster), may be dictated as the "starting slot for single sticks". Modern kit does not care about this. Even the Management Engine, now doesn't care. At one time, the Management Engine "stole" RAM from a particular slot. (Q45 has a Management Engine, seen on Optiplex perhaps. The Q hints at ME present. Business class computers.)

CH0 CH1

| | 4GB X | | X X

It's not likely to have shipped with x86 Windows in it, and it shipped with x64 Windows ("64 bit") and consequently, the symptoms are a lot easier to understand. With the 4GB installed by itself, there should be "4GB free" reported on a x64 OS installation.

Now, fit the final config, and test with memtest. Scroll half way down this page, to the download section.

A Windows version named after a brain disease

It had about the same effect as the disease it was named after on the unfortunate support staff who had to look after machines with it on.

I don't know why Vista had quite such a bad press. It was a model of decorum compared to the completely crap buggy Excel 2007 that shipped at about the same time. The main annoyance with Vista was that certain big manufacturers would not provide drivers for old kit using the new OS which is why I will never buy anything from HP ever again.

Win10 is definitely better than Win 8.x. I still prefer Win7 though.

It's funny, the only people who seemed to have an issue with any particular version of any OS were the geeks. I learned that after many years of IT support (going from the DOS days till now really ...) when talking to someone who was running a less liked version of an OS who was perfectly happy with it (and it's performance / reliability etc). The only time *they* might say something is if they upgraded to a new PC / OS and even if we thought the change 'better', they may still not.

Like many tekky people, I still prefer W7 over pretty well any other Windows version because it's sufficiently good / reliable, reasonably 'automagic' and well supported out there in the world whilst not having all the bling of W10. I know you can often tweak the DE to make it look like the previous / some other version but I don't. I leave them as stock because I need to get to know them as they come OOTB as that's how most people leave / have them that I'm often trying to help.

I think I've had and used pretty well every version of Win / OSX / Linux along the way but never really had to use anything directly for my work, rather than just a general tool for all sorts of tasks, I've not really suffered the things that put many off particular versions.

I generally just spec, build and install an OS for the user then only see it again if they break it or want it upgraded. ;-)

I'm still typing this on XP ... on a Mac Mini and whilst it's on pretty well all day every day and still doing 99% of what I need, I really should set up the W10 box I built to replace it about 2 years ago ... (and there is a port free on my 4 port KVM switch waiting for it). ;-)

Cheers, T i m