DDR issue

[Mirth]

Just bought two sticks of DDR to add to my system, and as far as I could tell they looked compatable.

I already had a stick of 512 in there, so today I installed the two more pieces of 512 I just bought.

Only now the system only recognizes 1023?

Here's what I bought.

Speed: DDR400(PC3200)
Type: 184 Pin DDR SDRAM

And my mobo (Which I double checked before I bought it and it supports up to 2GB)

http://usa.aopen.com/Products/MB/ax4b-533tube.htm

The old piece is PC2700, and I tried it in the first slot, with the two new ones in the second and third slots, then swapped them around so the PC2700 was in the third slot, still no good.

What am I missing here? I'm sure there is some nuance i'm not understanding.

 

[mechBgon]

The i845E chipset used on your motherboard supports a maximum of four banks of RAM. Your 512's are probably all two banks each, so you're trying for six. Solution: get a single 1GB module instead. Corsair's ValueSelect 1GB PC3200 modules are $198-ish at Newegg when I looked the other day.

 

[vskagentsmith]

This is just my two cents, but you may want to consider upgrading the board altogether, your board only supports DDR266 [PC2100], why you can certainly plug the higher clock speed memory in there, there's no difference between the current RAM you had and the RAM you're putting in there (I'm assuming hte old RAM is PC2100?).

You could get much better performance from your RAM if you get a board that supports PC3200, otherwise you just spent extra cash on RAM with a higher clock speed that won't make any different, besides the higher quantity.

 

[Mirth]

Both are options for me to mull over. Thanks for the help guys, Looks like i'll be testing out Newegg's exchange/return policy