Anyone have experience running 2 diff types of RAM ?

[Uber Nooblett]

Hey, Just ordered 2 x 2gb DDR2 667 chips. I currently have 4 x 1gb DDR2 chips which I think are 533s. I plan to remove the 2 1gb chips on the first set of channels and replace them with the 2 new 2gb chips.

What I was wondering is this:
I am guessing that the 2 x 2gb chips will drop to 533 from 667 to compensate for the 2 x 1gb chips on the other channels, is this correct?
Has anyone had issues running 2gb chips next to 1gb chips? (especially if diff freqs)
Has anyone else run large amounts of ram (in excess of 5/6gb) and if so, is the performance increase noticeable over 4gb?

Thanks in advance

JJ

[eriefisher]

Re: Anyone have experience running 2 diff types of RAM ?

Will you mother board even run that kind of ram? Usually it will run at the lowest speed installed. I don't think you will see any kind of performance increase. You might even see a decrease.

eriefisher

[Uber Nooblett]

Re: Anyone have experience running 2 diff types of RAM ?

My board takes up to 8gb, its an Asus M2N-E

Am glad you agree about it running lowest speed installed, that is what I suspected will be nice to see if there is a noticeable increase when i get 2 more 2gb 667s though

Why do you think there will be a performance decrease with more ram? :S It will all still be running dual channel

[dibl]

Re: Anyone have experience running 2 diff types of RAM ?

I am guessing that the 2 x 2gb chips will drop to 500 from 667 to compensate for the 2 x 1gb chips on the other channels, is this correct?

That would be my guess too. I guess I'll let you run the experiment.

Has anyone else run large amounts of ram (in excess of 5/6gb) and if so, is the performance increase noticeable over 4gb?

I've got 4GB of Mushkin Redline, and I've never seen more than about 1GB being used by the system -- I don't know what application(s) you would need to run on a workstation setup to use that much. I've run both CPU cores to 100% doing audio file processing tasks, but the app (gwc) is 32-bit, so it doesn't hit RAM that hard. Probably a multi-user (server) would use it with enough users logged in.

[Uber Nooblett]

Re: Anyone have experience running 2 diff types of RAM ?

I am guessing that the 2 x 2gb chips will drop to 500 from 667 to compensate for the 2 x 1gb chips on the other channels, is this correct?

That would be my guess too. I guess I'll let you run the experiment.

Has anyone else run large amounts of ram (in excess of 5/6gb) and if so, is the performance increase noticeable over 4gb?

I've got 4GB of Mushkin Redline, and I've never seen more than about 1GB being used by the system -- I don't know what application(s) you would need to run on a workstation setup to use that much. I've run both CPU cores to 100% doing audio file processing tasks, but the app (gwc) is 32-bit, so it doesn't hit RAM that hard. Probably a multi-user (server) would use it with enough users logged in.

Well I have seen my system use all 4 gigs at times, though still running smoothly at the time. I am hoping th extra 2gb will give me some extra oomf when such times arise.

I do tend to run a lot of apps doing a lot of things and use all 4 dual screen sized desktops in beryl to do so. gimp is always running and I've increased its RAM access to increase the amount of back-editing I can do as well as other things. I also run transcoding apps on one desktop to convert my vids and other things to DVD format for hard storage and am in the process of transferring some VHS to DVD so that will be used more.

Also, I've gotten myself a copy of Vista Home Premium 64bit cause my local are doing it dirty cheap OEM. This means I'll be able to run my nice games again (got soooo fed up with my 32bit original release XP home after many installs and muckups) and I'll also be able to install and port (reg copy) CS2 etc to linux so I have more of my fav win apps here in my fav OS
I know Vista is RAM hungry in general so I'm hoping the 6gb will do the trick of making Microsuck microwork properly... (I pray)

[dibl]

Re: Anyone have experience running 2 diff types of RAM ?

I've increased its RAM access to increase the amount of back-editing I can do as well as other things. I also run transcoding apps on one desktop to convert my vids and other things to DVD format for hard storage and am in the process of transferring some VHS to DVD so that will be used more.

Good idea -- I don't know why I've been using Linux for a year, and never thought to look into the method for increasing RAM available to individual processes. I should have remembered that from running Unix in days of yore.

What video transcoding app are you using? Just curious -- I'm still playing around trying to come up with a process to make a DVD that will play on any player out of an mpeg2 file that I recorded off a VHS tape.

[Rog131]

Re: Anyone have experience running 2 diff types of RAM ?

What kind of Kubuntu do you have ?

If you have 32 bit version. It seems that standard kernel is compiled with 4GB support:
Why Ubuntu limit 4GB RAM
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=362100

but if you have more ram:
HOWTO: Kernel Compilation for Newbies
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=56835

If you have more than 900MB RAM then you'll definitely need this, otherwise (or if you are using Ubuntu 64 bit) skip this step:
Scroll down the text until you find “High Memory Support”.
Select it.
You'll have three possible choices:
Off
4GB (if you have no more than 4GB RAM)
64GB (if you have more than 4GB RAM)
Select one of these functions and press enter.
Press the right arrow and select exit

[Uber Nooblett]

Re: Anyone have experience running 2 diff types of RAM ?

Well onces I have a video file from recorded from the VHS, I just transcode it to DVD format with DeVeDe.

DeVeDe is very similar to Nero Vision Express in Windows. Gives you all sorts of options and does it all in the one GUI rather than having to faff about with command line parameters. ts let me fit whole series onto one DVD without loss in quality which is great if you don't want to have to use the more expensive DVD 9 format. So far its everything I want it to superbly

On the other hand, I do also have a simply Python script you can just drop into a folder you have avi files in and it will convert to standard 4:3 or 16:9 formats, it does have issues with certain formats though, such as certain anamorphic widescreen formats as if its not been recorded in standard format with black borders, it'll be stretched to fit. However, DeVeDe on the other hand adds borders by default (though you can switch this off).

I'll sometimes use Avidemux to edit it prior as it has a lot of plug-ins which you can use to improve quality and get rid of graining etc. Also, if you record a file in raw format it takes up looooads of space, so I tend to encode via Avidemux once I'm done with the file so I have a decent quality hard copy that doesn't take up a few gigs of space.

[Uber Nooblett]

Re: Anyone have experience running 2 diff types of RAM ?

What kind of Kubuntu do you have ?

If you have 32 bit version. It seems that standard kernel is compiled with 4GB support:
Why Ubuntu limit 4GB RAM
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=362100

but if you have more ram:
HOWTO: Kernel Compilation for Newbies
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=56835

If you have more than 900MB RAM then you'll definitely need this, otherwise (or if you are using Ubuntu 64 bit) skip this step:
Scroll down the text until you find “High Memory Support”.
Select it.
You'll have three possible choices:
Off
4GB (if you have no more than 4GB RAM)
64GB (if you have more than 4GB RAM)
Select one of these functions and press enter.
Press the right arrow and select exit

I use Kubuntu 64 bit and am getting Vista 64 bit to dual boot, so I believe that larger memory configs are supported at least (Vista Home Premium 64 bit has a 16gb memory limit).

I know that in 32bit windows and Linux the limit is 4gb, though I have found that 4gb on windows XP 32bit actually runs at less than 3.7gb and single chan rather than dual on a 4 chip config).

I am hoping that Kubuntu 64 bit is similar in its memory allowance to 64 bit Vista and therefore hopefully more RAM will only be an improvement. However, the reason I ask is because I'm still not completely familiar with the OS, having only used it a few months so far. From my understanding, 64 bit should support larger RAM without decreasing performance, though I've assumed such things before...

[SheeEttin]

Re: Anyone have experience running 2 diff types of RAM ?

I have 1 GB of RAM, and the only time I've seen it use it all (for actual use, not just caching) is when I patched a 2.5 GB game through Wine. I'm guessing it loaded all the files and then didn't release the memory.

You will probably never need more than 2 GB of memory unless you do some really extreme, high-quality gaming--and even then, you'll need a good GPU/CPU more than a lot of RAM.
You say what you are doing is transcoding video... Unless these videos are more than a few GB each, the extra memory may not help. (What might help is recording in the format you want if at all possible.)

Oh wait, you say you're using Vista? Yeah, Vista eats up memory like nothing. Complete resource hog.

[Uber Nooblett]

Re: Anyone have experience running 2 diff types of RAM ?

Aye, Vista is a new toy that I just got so I could play games and port a few programs to Linux, that is all I will use it for, I'm not planning on keeping the machine booted in a Microswant OS ever again hehe.

far as CPU goes, next year, if I can afford it I'm going to see if I can get a Quad FX, apparently they're going to be dirt cheap through my supplier within a few months so that'll be the upgrade time. With the new mobo and everything else involved in upgrading to Quad, I'm going to need to do some serious saving... or win the lotto lol

PC specs now: Athlon 64 x2 6000+, 6gb DDR2 (pending delivery of new chips), 8800 GTS 640mb, 16x DL DVDRW, Enermax Liberty 500W PSU, TT Tribe Water Cooling Unit, Audigy 2 ZS, 80GB high speed SATA, 500GB 7200 SATA, 160gb 7200 IDE, 60gb 7200 IDE (will be Vista boot), 320GB External, Dual TFT, Genius Ergomedia keyboard, Genius Ergo 525 Laser Mouse, Wacom Stylus pen pad, TT Soprano Case with custom clear side panel coming next week.

I did have 2 TT Tornado fans in there which really did a great job of keeping the temps down, but WOW did they make a hell of a racket! Was like sitting next to a hair dryer on full blast!

[Uber Nooblett]

Re: Anyone have experience running 2 diff types of RAM ?

This is the memory allocation under current use. note: I was not doing any transcoding or editing of images when this was taken, though GIMP is open amongst other things.

[SheeEttin]

Re: Anyone have experience running 2 diff types of RAM ?

Yeah, you're really only using half of your memory. The rest will get pushed out when needed.