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Ethan
13
Asked
Can you have uneven memory in the two memory slots?
Hey, I was looking to upgrade my mac book pros memory when I saw i have 2 gb memory in each slot, and I was wondering can you have 4 gb of memory in one slot and 2 gb in the other or do both slots need to be even. Thanks in advance.
EDIT: I read the answers and Im a but confuse, So I will my computer run faster then before with the 4 and 2 gb? Or will it be the same because of the uneven-ness.
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Dan
6.4k
Answered
To clarify things here:
Yes, you can have different sized SIMMs in the slots as long as each meets the needed speed for the given model. You may also be required into installing the smaller SIMM in a given slot. While you will have more memory to use the addressing will be slower.
If at all possible use the same sized SIMMs by the same manufacture (as some manufactures chips may not play together well) so you can use inter-leaved mode.
When you have the same sized SIMM in each slot the faster inter-leaved mode is used.
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Answered
CAN you have uneven RAM chips? Absolutely! Will it run? It should for a while at least. The problem is that your system will become unstable and likely crash regularly. The best option is to get matched RAM.
The system can become unstable only when you have the same size memory by different vendors as inter-leaved mode is more demanding. Yes, some SIMM's play nice, others not. If you want to get deep here it's the RAS & CAS speed (read & write) of the discrete memory segments between the SIMM's. Thats putting aside the SIMM's are correctly rated (I/O) for the given system. If not even mixed sized SIMM's could be unstable.
Dan,
