This is probably going to sound like a silly question but i recently upgraded my ram in my lappy to 4gb and now have 2gb spare which my mate wants however his is currently 533mhz and the stuff ive got spare is 667mhz, will my ram work in his laptop with no problems? thanks
right im not to sure on this but i think it should run, if his motherboard supports 667mhz it will run at that, but if it can only support a maximum of 533, then the memory will only run at 533. i may be wrong, but im sure it would just run at the lower 533.
my friend originally had 512MB 533Mhz RAM in his IBM T60, he upgraded to 2GB 667Mhz RAM without any problem although i doubt there's such thing as too much RAM with only 4GB of it
The speed at which RAM runs is determined by the motherboard not the RAM it's self. 667MHz is the RAM's rated speed, i.e.the highest guaranteed speed, it will therefore run at lower speeds without issue. Obviously you will run into problems if you try to run RAM at a higher speed than it's rated figure, but not when running slower. There are cases, however, where certain RAM require a specific voltage which the mobo can't supply, but I doubt that will be an issue in this case Think of it as car tyres, you can by V rated tyres (rated to 140mph), it doesn't mean your car will hit 140mph, the tyres although rated to 140mph will only go as fast as the car.
As far as I understand, the memory speed should drop from 667 to 533. But, not all hardware likes it and you could have problems on the long run. Especially because one memory stick is 667 and the other is 533. But you should be fine. Edit: Try this link out and scan you Notebook http://www.crucial.com/uk/systemscanner/index.aspx Good luck
Thanks for all the replies, its not actually going in my lappy ive gone from 2 x 1gb 667 --> 2 x 2gb 667 so ive had no issues, ive let my mate take the original for his so no doubt he will post here if it works out for him. thanks again.
It will work. DDR RAMs are backward compatible. 1 thing to watch out for is... Maximum GB per slot limitation. My older notebook has a 512MB per slot limitation. but i just plug a 1GB stick in. no issues. It's a memory controller limitation. Notebooks are (or used to be) built with more care and precision. They almost never have compatibility issues with the board or the other module. SO-DIMM are designed and built very well.