RAM, the same but different

Hello all!

This week I bought a second stick of 256 MB RAM. I choose to add an identical stick to the one I had, well, that´s what I thought.

They are both Samsung Original SDRAM PC133.

Physically they differ in that the old one has chips on both sides of the board whereas the new one has chips on one side only.

In AIDA32 they differ too:

Old: 256 MB, 2 rows, 4 banks, Refresh Rate normal - 15.6 µs

New: 256 MB, 1 row, 2 banks, Refresh Rate reduced - 7.8 µs

Physical Memory - Total: 511 MB (see below)

I´ve heard about single sided and double sided RAM sticks. Is that the difference?

Will they work well together?

In BIOS the memory is reported as Base Memory 640K, Extended Memory 523264K, Total Memory 524288.

Shouldn´t Base and Extended add up to Total?

The Total is correct (512 MB) and Base is correct but if You add Base and Extended, 384K is missing (from Extended?).

Extended equals an even 511 MB which is what AIDA32 reports for Total Physical Memory.

Thanks for Your time,
Christer

 

Base Memory 640K is an entirely different thing. (it's a DOS thing)

Looks like you're running AOK..

 

Hi Steve,
thanks for Your input!

I´ve come to the conclusion that the old stick is double sided and the new stick is single sided.

Is the "Reduced Refresh Rate" a good thing?

The lower value in µs indicate to me an increased refresh rate but I probably have my logic twisted.

Christer