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  1. Fill All Ram Slots Or Not Available
  2. Fill All Ram Slots Or Nothing
  3. Fill All Ram Slots Or Not Working

Fill All Ram Slots Or Not Available

If it is DDR2 or DDR3 with 4 DIMM slots, then it will be a dual channel configuration, in which there will be no performance difference between having two slots filled vs all four filled, if only two are filled, it is the matter of if the motherboard supports the RAM sticks and the correct slots to fit them into. No you dont have to fill all slots. Usually its the Gray slots you have to fill for dual channel memory to work (Check your MOBO manual to make sure of the positioning.).

  • There are two scenarios where you would see a benefit from using up all of your ram slots: Your system doesn't have enough ram, and in filling all the ram slots you slot more ram. Going from one 2gb stick to two 1gb sticks won't see any improvement, but adding 1-3 extra 2gb sticks would. Your system is suffering from a memory access bottleneck.
  • The only thing to consider is if you plan on using Dual Channel with your RAM. Alot of MOBOs that support dual channel require pairing of course, but if you fill all the slots it bumps the FSB down! So read very carefully on what your board says about this. This thread has been Locked and is not open to further replies.

Slots
This is the total number of memory upgrade slots (sockets) followed by their configuration. Banks are the way a system addresses memory. A bank must be completely filled with memory modules of the same size and type in order for the system to recognize and address the memory. i.e. :
3 (3 banks of 1) This indicates that there are 3 memory slots. These are divided into 3 banks, and each bank consists of one memory slot. So you can add memory one piece at a time for the system to use.

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Fill All Ram Slots Or Nothing

4 (2 banks of 2) This indicates that there are 4 memory slots. These are divided into 2 banks, and each bank consists of two memory slots. So you must add memory two pieces at a time (they must be the same size and type of memory) in order for the system to benefit from the upgrade.

Fill All Ram Slots Or Not Working

12 (3 banks of 4) This indicates that there are 12 memory slots. These are divided into 3 banks, and each bank consists of four memory slots. So you must add memory four pieces at a time (and they must be the same size and type of memory) in order for the system to benefit from the upgrade.