Single Channel / Dual Channel Issues?

the_greeze · 15 Aug 2011 at 19:30

Evening All,
What possible problems could I experience if I mistakenly had my 2 dual channel 2GB sticks running in single channel mode (eg: inserted in the wrong DIMM slots on the MB)?

System slow down? Crashes?

Thanks in advance...

Surveyor · 15 Aug 2011 at 20:26

the_greeze said:
Evening All,
What possible problems could I experience if I mistakenly had my 2 dual channel 2GB sticks running in single channel mode (eg: inserted in the wrong DIMM slots on the MB)?

System slow down? Crashes?

Thanks in advance...

You shouldn't experience problems like crashes but some motherboards do prefer you to use certain slots before others.

The system will overall just be a little slower.

If you need to know which slots to use just post the make and mdel of your motherboard.

It's usually slots of the same colour.

The 2 blue slots on the MSI P67A-GD65, for example, are the first 2 slots to use followed by the 2 black slots if you have 4 sticks of RAM.

Jordan97 · 15 Aug 2011 at 20:38

Some boards have all slots one colour, like the ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen 3 and Gigabyte Z68 and 990FXA boards to name a few. In which case you will either have to look on the board itself for the slot numbers or look in the manual. Or, as Surveyor said, just post the make and model of your motherboard and we can assist you.

the_greeze · 15 Aug 2011 at 22:33

Cheers guys. I have the memory running in dual channel mode now. I was experiencing some weird BSOD issues and was wondering if having the DIMM's in single channel mode (which is how I originally, mistakenly had them fitted) could be a contributing factor.

Here is a link to my post in the Graphic Card forum for a bit of background. I have used Memtest to check the RAM and all is well. Apart from identifying that the RAM was running in single channel mode, it passed all tests.

Does the problem I describe in the linked post sound like a memory issue to you?

Surveyor · 15 Aug 2011 at 22:37

It's a bit tricky because you say it's working OK now.

You could try running with each graphics card individually to see if one is causing a problem.

Similarly with the sticks of RAM.

the_greeze · 16 Aug 2011 at 07:17

Yeah, it's weird one! Like I said in the other thread, I kinda wish it didn't work because it would have made it easier to diagnose!

Anyway, it seems okay now (although it's out of it's usual environment and is sitting on my desk, attached to a single monitor. It's usually in a triple-screen setup) so I guess I'll just have to see how it goes.

I tested the GPU's RAM with the facility in OCCT and they both checked out okay. I know this is the wrong place to ask, but is anyone aware of any GPU diagnostic software?

Thanks...

Jordan97 · 16 Aug 2011 at 10:32

You could run FurMark. If the graphics card is the issue, it won't be able to cope with the intense stress put on it.

I don't think that there is a designated GPU diagnostics tool around though.

GPU-Z is a program that will give all the information you ever need to know about your graphics card.

the_greeze · 16 Aug 2011 at 12:06

Cheers Jordan. I think I'm going to re-instate the PC back into my driving rig and see how it goes. I downloaded GPU-Z (and CPU-Z) and everything checks out okay.

If it still plays up, I'll try FurMark.

Thanks all for the info/advice