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Jan 26, 2016 Read your motherboard manual. It will tell you which slots to insert ram. It all depends on the motherboard and the type of channel. For example, if your motherboard is dual channel and you use a single stick or put 2 sticks in the wrong slots, you will not get the performance benefit of dual channel. Jan 09, 2014 SuperUser reader Totymedli is curious about the color coding of RAM slots: I have always seen that the motherboard RAM slots are colored in pairs, but never knew what it meant. I just put the 2 RAM in, and after a few tries it always worked. But after I tried to install a third one it always throws me a blue screen of death. I have a gigabyte b450m ds3h wifi motherboard. I have two corsair 16gb sticks and 2 pny 8gb sticks. Which slots show the 16 go in and which should. Just built a PC and unsure whether or not it makes a difference if I use 2 adjacent slots or 2 alternating slots. MB: Asus m5a97 evo r2 RAM: Corsair vengeance 1600mhz DDR3 8gb (x2) If I use adjacent slots (not colour coded) then will it run slower or will windows read each stick separately.

Adding additional RAM memory to computer had been always one of the easiest and efficient upgrades. Over years with baggage of hardware generations and new technologies it can get tricky.

When installing memory it’s not important what to do, but more important to do it right

Choose memory

There are two main factors in memory: type and speed.

By type most of it is one of DDR, DDR2 or DDR3 (unless you are looking at really old computer). Memory of different types is not compatible mechanically or electronically. Motherboards usually have slots for one specific kind of memory, some rare models can support memory of two types (but not at the same time).

Speed of memory is faster for newer types, but also differs in margins of every type. Motherboards might only support slower speed than memory can come with. Memory of different speeds will in general work with any motherboard of required type. Slow memory will work at its speed even if motherboard can go faster. Fast memory will slow down to match motherboard if needed.

So you need memory that matches motherboard in type and (best case) speed. If adding memory it is also good idea that new modules match old ones in parameters and brand.

Manufacturers always provide (in manual and online) information on what memory motherboard supports and larger brands even offer lists of practically tested modules for each motherboard.

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Choose slots

I remember times when you just had to stick modules in, but those are gone.

What Slots Should Ram Go In

Currently most of motherboards/processor combos support at least two memory channels. I think there are already rare (for now) configurations with three channels.

Different channels correspond to different physical slots on board. The idea is that memory must be balanced between channels and that requires them to be filled in specific order.

Motherboard manual has diagram of slot channels and numbers. For example like this one:

Letter commonly refer to channel, numbers commonly refer to order inside channel. In usual case (when manual doesn’t have other explicit instructions) slots must be filled in following order:

  1. First slot of first channel (A1 in example)
  2. First slot of second channel (B1)
  3. Second slot of first channel (A2)
  4. Second slot of second channel (B2)
  5. And so on.

If you need to install multiply modules it is best to add them one by one.

Overall

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Installing memory is not hard, but my advice is to have motherboard manual open and ready. Those slots rarely come in any kind of sane order. I had recently upgraded computer for a friend and it took me five attempts to get kit of 3x2GB memory modules working correctly.

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