How to Build Your Own PC - Save A Buck And Learn A Lot  9  Chapter 3: Installing the CPU, Heatsink, and RAM On The Mainboard       9  Installing Memory (RAM)

Installing Memory (RAM) 1 Preparing to Install the RAM

Each memory socket is called a bank. And, the banks are numbered. Examine your mainboard and its manual to see which bank is Bank 1. It’s most common to place a single memory chip into Bank 1. If you install several memory chips, see which order allows the easiest installation of all the chips. This isn’t usually a problem with DDR memory which is inserted straight down, but if one of the banks of memory is close to some obstruction, you might want to install that bank first. That way each chip will be easy to install.

It’s usually recommended that all your memory chips be similar. For example, the memory used in this build is Kingston DDR PC2700 ValueRAM. So, if you decided to add another 256MB RAM chip to your PC and you had Kingston PC2700 ValueRAM installed, it would probably be good to use Kingston PC2700 ValueRAM for the new 256MB chip.

You can mix PC2700 chips with PC2100 chips, for example, but they’ll all often run at the slowest speed. Whenever you have a question about memory compatibility, check your mainboard manual and look for the memory chip manufacturer’s website with google.com.

For example, the mainboard manual for the A7V333-X says that the chips should be unbuffered non-ECC DDR SDRAM. That’s the most common type. But, if you wanted to double check that the Kingston ValueRAM we purchased was appropriate, you could go to kingston.com and look up the exact Kingston model of the memory chip to see that it’s non-ECC (you could get the model number from a website like BestBuy.com where you were thinking of purchasing the RAM).

Today, most memory sockets and leads will use gold contacts. You can see this by the goldish color of the connectors. It’s usually recommended that you don’t try to mate gold connectors with tin connectors, because the metals won’t play nicely with each other. They try to steal each other’s electrons which leads to a corrosive-type effect.

Installing Memory (RAM) 1 Preparing to Install the RAM