computer upgrade question - RD RAM
 

in my hackintosh, i have 1GB of RDRam, 4x256MB. id like to upgrade it to 2GB (motherboard max). however, i have forgotten how to mix ram in serial and parallel and such. could i just buy 2 1GB ram sticks, and leave 2 empty, or do i have to have them all full? and do they sell RD Ram at staples or best buy or fryes or whatever? god i wish they had just stuck with DDR2

Wow, holy crap, you have a computer that uses RDRAM? Good luck finding that, good luck not paying an arm and a leg for it either. You will not be able to use other types of DRAM, such as EDO (which predates the 90s) the much more common SDRAM (PC-66/100/133) or any of the DDRs. Even if you find non RDRAM modules that physically fit, they will not be electrically similar and will cause problems. You actually might find it cheaper to buy a modern low-end system that already has 2-4gb of ram than actually shelling out for 4 512mb RDRAM sticks, older ram tends to get more and more expensive until it's ancient and then it's worthless. RDRAM, SDRAM, DDR, and DDR2, tend to cost a lot more than DDR3, RDRAM especially because it never really caught on. Yeah, I just priced it, you're looking at over $200/stick new for 512mb sticks, and it's a bad idea to buy used ram, you never know what's really happened to it.

To upgrade your system to it's 2gb max, assuming you have 4 RAM slots, you will need 4 512mb modules, if you put a 1gb module into one of your slots, you will find that only 512mb of it are actually recognized. As for how they should be populated, that is usually determined by the mobo manufacturer but they by no means need to all have a module installed (unless directly specified, and that is highly unlikely), the order of population might matter, but I think your system is old enough that it shouldn't matter (my dual-Xeon box requires a -very- specific population order or the RAM won't get detected).

E: Forgot to mention, ALL slots must be populated on an RDRAM mobo, you need to populate the empty slots with dummy modules if you aren't using them. If you don't have dummy modules, you'll need to get them, and they aren't easy to find.

yeah I've got a set of matched RDRAM (same setup; 4x256) and an old, I mean OLD P4 processor with an OEM Thermaltake cooler, that came out of a Dell if I'm not mistaken, years ago...

I actually think it was some kick-ass hardware back in the day, lol

I tried to sell it on eBay some time ago... didn't pull in a single bid :roll:

a dell, exactly. my model is a dell dimension 8200. lol. or 8100, something like that. i gave it to my mom when i was done playing with it, cuz her pentium 4 with 512Mb ram was going super slow. she now is planning on buying a mac mini because she likes the mac OS so much more than windows. LOL.

Moms and old people, exactly who Macs are for! :nana:

I need to put more ram in my office workstation, 2gb just isn't enough when you're virtualizing, using xwin, rdc, and running a hefty CADD program too. Wish I had 8gb in it like I do in my home machine, even my netbook has 4gb!