Ram question

Ram question. I purchased a 1gb ram stico from 18004memory. I want to purchase a second gig, but I don't want to purchase it from the same place. I purchased my ram and then recieved an e-mail from them saying please allow 1 month for ram to arive. 1 MONTH??? Wow, anyway, a month later I recieved my ram, everything is fine, but now I want to buy a new gb. Anyway, I read in my wife's HP vista laptop that you should always use the same brand and size ram in each ram slot, otherwise it could slow down your system. So if I purchase my ram from a different copany (crucial, newegg), will my computer be affected with slowdowns or anything beacuse I am using two different kinds of ram? P.S. 18004memory may be cheap, bt I highly suggest staying away from them unless you have a month to kill waiting on your order.

i aalso want to know the answer
but im pretty sure it doesnt matter

G'day jaster.

Firstly, this is the ram you need to buy for your MacBook:

200-PIN SODIMM • DDR2 PC2-5300 • CL=5 • UNBUFFERED • NON-ECC • DDR2-667 • 1.8V

Here are some snippets I got from googling and one which comes from Mac-Forums:

Q. Can I mix brands of RAM on my MacBook.

I don't have any qualms about mixing different brands of memory, I have two different kinds in this powerbook (currently 46-day uptime) without problems and my iMac just had a 50 day uptime with two different brands.

But the point remains the same, saving 20 or 30 dollars on a stick of memory is not worth the headaches that may come with cheap memory.

Click to expand...

Technically, yes. As long as they are the same speed and layout SS or DS. You'd also have to be careful with timings.

Most OEM memory is either agressively timed or passively timed. A MacBook Pro is likely to be agressively timed to see an extra performance boost. So you'll have to get quality memory with some decent timings. If you buy value RAM that doesn't perform well at low latency you'll have some compatability issues. And likely, freezing and all those other crazy symptoms apple users claim they never see because of their godly OSX.

If you don't put the right set of hardware in to begin with, you're doomed from the start, no matter what software you run.

Click to expand...

Get good quality memory. You can tell what that look like... it's got a name on it!
Don't mix different makes.
Don't mix different specs.

Click to expand...

Mixing different brands of ram is ok as long as they are of the same density. They don't necessarily need the same CAS and other timings, but if you want to be on the safe side this wouldn't hurt. It doesn't necessarily need to be the same speed either, but some systems will require an SPD entry for the speed that the motherboard wants to run the ram at.

Click to expand...

I recently upgraded my RAM and purchased 1Gb X 2 from Crucial. I bought it on a Thursday and it arrived from US>Aust on the following Tuesday.




I also have a question about RAM:

If I do replace one of the 512MB sticks with a 1GB, how will the performance compare with using 2x1GB instead of 1GB+512MB? Will there be a huge difference or is 1GB+512MB good enough to run Rosetta programs or through Parallels?

Thanks!