Can you have too much RAM?

[BabyFaceLee]

Hi folks
During the course of trying to troubleshoot recent BSoDs I bought 2gb of RAM to replace my existing (2gb) RAM. As it happens the problems were with Steganos Safe but I haven't installed all 4gb of RAM yet. I replaced my existing pair of 1gb sticks with the two new ones but wonder if it's OK to have all 4gb in my PC. I kind of assume that the more the merrier but perhaps this isn't the case in all circumstances (?)
Here's a quick run down of my system:

Silverstone Temjin TJ05 case
ABIT AN8 32X motherboard
AMD FX60 Dual Core CPU
2 x 250gb Samsung Spinpoint SP2504C drives (in striped array)
2 x 256mb nVidia 7800GTX SLI graphics cards
Soundblaster Audigy 4 soundcard
Corsair XMS PC3500LLPro (2 x 1gb matched modules)
Windows XP Professional (SP2)

Any thoughts? Could excessive heat be an issue?

 

[RealBlackStuff]

If the RAM modules are all the same (same brand, same speed, same CL, same number of chips on the module, etc.) it MIGHT work.
A number of motherboards switch down from DDR400/PC3200 to DDR333/PC2700 if you put 4 sticks in, so go and READ the Mobo Manual first.
Make sure to protect the RAM against static when you 'play' with it, and that the PC is OFF and disconnected from the mains before you insert/remove!

 

[Tedster]

yes. Read sticky:
https://www.techspot.com/vb/topic47210.html

 

[BabyFaceLee]

My two sets of RAM are identical Corsair XMS PC3500LLPro 2gb kits by the way.

I'm looking at the motherboard manual and I basically don't understand it so here's a snippet of what's in a table that you might be able to interpret for me.
The table is entitled: unbuffered DIMM support for AMD 939-pin Processor

There are 7 columns:
Data Bus (either 64-bits single channel or 128-bits dual channel) - I presume the rows that relate to 128-bits apply in my case (?) as it states N/A against Dimm2 and Dimm4 for each 64-bit entry)
Dimm1, Dimm2, Dimm3 & Dimm4
1T and 2T

I've abbreviated Single Rank to S and Double Rank to D for each of Dimms1 to 4.
These are for 128-bit Data Bus
S S S S: 1T = DDR333 & 2T = DDR400
S S D D: 1T = DDR200 & 2T = DDR400
D D S S: 1T = DDR200 & 2T = DDR400
D D D D: 1T = DDR200 & 2T = DDR333

I don't know if Single or Double Rank applies as I haven't a clue what it means!

Can you enlighten me?

Thanks!!!

 

[Tedster]

I am assuming they mean single sided RAM modules and double sided Ram modules.
Place your DDR RAM in slots 1 and two (matched pairs) if I am reading your chart correctly.

 

[Radwen]

754 sockets only work in single channel.
Since you use a 939 socket, you can use both.

 

[BabyFaceLee]

Thanks for your replies guys.
Sorry to labour this point but I'm not sure I'm any further forward in understanding if my RAM will run at a slower speed (re: RealBlackStuff's reply).

As I'm putting RAM in all 4 slots I presume that if my RAM is regarded as Single Rank (SSSS), 1T will = DDR333 and 2T will = DDR400 but if it's regarded as Double Rank (DDDD), 1T will = DDR200 and 2T will = DDR333 which I presume is not as good.

How do I know if it's Single or Double? I can't tell by looking at it as it's encased in a plastic sleeve.

Thanks for your help so far.

 

[Radwen]

Most likely double sided. At that size also. You should be able to remove the sleeve though.