Adding more RAM to pre over-clocked system from OCUK

Joey1988

Joey1988

Joey1988

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10 Mar 2009
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140
Hi guys.

I purchased this system from OCUK a while ago:

"Radon Torosaur" Intel Core i5 2500K 3.30GHz @ 4.40GHz Overclocked Bundle

Mainboard : Gigabyte P67A-UD4-B3

Processor : Intel Core i5 2500K

Physical Memory : 4096MB (2 x 2048 DDR3-SDRAM ) (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9)

Operating System : Windows 7 Home Premium Home Edition Media Center 6.01.7600 (64-bit)
Click to expand...


It's been running very well since I bought it but recently I've found my system using a hell of a lot of memory sometimes. It will go to 90%+ physical memory usage and will cause the game I'm playing to slightly stutter sometimes which is really annoying.

I'm not sure what's causing that problem - I can't put my finger on it even after staring at resource monitor whilst it happens, svchost seems to be hogging a lot of ram sometimes. I've been in msconfig and disabled a bunch of services/start up programs but no luck so far.

I'm sure a reformat would sort me out but I can't be bothered to be honest & I really don't have the time to try work out what's causing the increased memory usage.

What I'd like to do is put some more RAM in my machine. However when I bought my pre overclocked system from OCUK I remember it said in the description that adding more RAM to the system may cause the overclock to become unstable.

I'd like to add another 4gb memory (2x2gb kit) into the machine, so I'd have a 2gb stick in each slot with a total of 8gb.

I'd buy the exact same memory that is already in the system.

Would this be a problem ? If so - what problems would I face doing this ?

Is it a simple case of changing a few values in the bios for the new sticks of RAM or would I actually have to change all the overclock settings done by OCUK and end up having to use a lower overclock than I currently am using ?

Forgive me if I've asked stupid questions - I have zero experience overclocking CPU/RAM the only overclocking I have ever done was on my new graphics card today which just involved moving two sliders in CCC !

Would appreciate any help/advice given, I want to make sure I wont be making a mistake purchasing more RAM for my system. :)

Thank you.
 
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Are you playing SWTOR as I've seen this behaviour reported by several other players here?

You shouldn't have to make any changes at all if you add identical RAM. At most the PC will insist you enter the BIOS and save settings on exit to acknowledge the change. If you do hit problems then you may need to fiddle with voltages a bit but wait until this actually happens....

However, it's worth checking that your PC's virtual memory is properly configured as OcUK seems to have a strange idea of how it should be. I'd set the minimum and maximum sizes equal to your physical RAM. Ask again if you don't know how to do this.
 
Thanks for the reply !

Another question I forgot to ask was, would it matter if I actually added a 2x4GB kit ? So I'd have a total of 12GB.

Slot 1+2 = 2x2gb
Slot 3+4 = 2x4gb

I don't play SWTOR, never have. All I currently play on PC is APB:Reloaded. The high memory usage not only happens when playing a game but often when just idle/browsing web - it's very random. I don't have any virus/malware scanners set to run/update or anything like that. The CPU usage doesn't reflect the high memory usage - my physical memory will be at 98% but the CPU usage will stay at 3-5%.

Regarding the virtual memory here are my current settings:

vmemory.jpg


So you want me to untick the automatic tickbox and change both the "initial size" and "maximum size" to 4079 ?


EDIT: I've just been checking out my settings and it seems my RAM is running @ 1600 with a voltage of 1.5v. How is this possible ? I thought my RAM was supposed to run at 1.65v when set to 1600 ? If someone could explain why this is possible I'd appreciate it as I'd like to be able to understand this sort of thing a bit better. Thanks.
 
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Your virtual memory looks okay. I always use custom sizes but the system size is okay.

Mixing DIMM sizes between banks is supported by the chipsets these days but it's still not something recommended, probably because we remember when it wasn't supported so not enough people do it to get a good picture of how well it works. I believe (but could be wrong) that there's a slight gain if the banks are the same size as they are then interleaved so it's similar to quad channel. As I said, I may be talking out of my bottom here.
 
Ah good, thanks again for your help.

Well anyway lets assume you aren't talking out of your bottom, I'll go with just 8gb, saves me a few quid anyway !

I'll order a memory kit today and report back if I have any problems.

Snapshot could you shed any light on the 1600mhz RAM running @ 1.5v question ? :)
 
I added 8GB DDR3 PC12800 1600MHz (2x4GB) to the 4GB (2x2GB) that came with my OcUK bundle (4.6GHz). I was afraid that the different RAM timings and different sized pairs would cause problems but it went more smoothly than I imagined. If memory serves I think I had a bluescreen on first boot, though it's possible it wasn't related (it was before I updated the firmware on my OCZ Vertex 3) - after that it behaved as expected and had no issues with Prime95.

With 4GB I was often running at 90%+ RAM usage just on the desktop, though it didn't seem to adversely affect game performance. Since upgrading I haven't notice any particularly improvement but I wasn't benchmarking, so couldn't tell you for certain. Windows 7 is pretty good at memory management.
 
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