Why do most nForce 2 boards only have 3 dimms slots?

soundfx4

Member

​

Joined

Feb 2, 2001

Location

Roanoke, VA

• Oct 8, 2003

• #1

I was just wandering if there was a reason for this seeing as nForce 2 boards are dual channel. Shouldn't there be 2 or 4 on every board? If there are three and you fill them up how can you have dual channel if one stick doesn't have another stick to work with? If some could explain it too me, I would be very thankful and happy!

 

shiyan

Member

​

Joined

Aug 23, 2003

Location

behind the wheel

• Oct 8, 2003

• #2

I'm not sure... maybe if you put 3 sticks in it reverts back to single channel mode?

the manual did specify the two slots you had to use for dual channel operation.

 

M

modenaf1

Member

​

Joined

Mar 1, 2003

Location

the terran system

• Oct 8, 2003

• #3

usually i think that the ram slots that work in dual channel mode are usually a different color than the 3rd one. I have seen that on some boards, but im not sure if all of them have it. If not i assume its in the manual, or labled in that fine paint on the mobo.

as to why it only has 3 slots, im puzzeled. my best guess would be that the memory controller can only handle so many slots or something.

 

funnyperson1

Senior Member

​

Joined

Jun 16, 2001

• Oct 8, 2003

• #4

actually i am pretty sure that the mobo runs in dual channel when all 3 slots are filled.

 

login211

Member

​

Joined

Jun 11, 2003

Location

Ontario, Canada

• Oct 9, 2003

• #5

slot 1 and slot 2 make one channel

slot 3 is is on it's own channel...

put a stick in 1 or 2 or both AND in slot 3 enables dual channel mode...

i believe the only nf2 board to have more than 3 dimms is the gigabyte nforce2 board whatever it's called...

 

deadkenny

Member

​

Joined

May 26, 2002

Location

Toronto

• Oct 9, 2003

• #6

The m/b should run dual channel with three sticks. The channels don't balance off sticks of memory like that. Actually, at the hardware level, there are 'banks' of memory, not sticks. It doesn't really matter whether there are 2 banks in 1 slot or 2 slots. So really you've got 2 banks on 1 channel and 4 banks on the other and the m/b 'manages' the available memory.

 

OP

soundfx4

Member

​

Joined

Feb 2, 2001

Location

Roanoke, VA

• Oct 10, 2003

• Thread Starter
• #7

ok, well what happens if you have 1 GB of ram in two 512 sticks operating in a dual channel environment, and you install a different brand of memory in the 3rd slot. Then what happens? Is there a tutorial or something explaining this? I am still a little confused Thanks

 

treepop

Member

​

Joined

Mar 4, 2003

• Oct 10, 2003

• #8

curious also..thinking of adding a sitck of insansley fast ram.....but think my other ram is gunna hurt it

 

FunkDaMonkMan

Member

​

Joined

Dec 31, 2001

• Oct 10, 2003

• #9

treepop said:

curious also..thinking of adding a sitck of insansley fast ram.....but think my other ram is gunna hurt it

Click to expand...

Getting fast ram won't help you any, because you won't be able to go any faster than the slower ram can go.

 

PDL

Member

​

Joined

Apr 21, 2001

Location

OH-Heartland of the USA

• Oct 10, 2003

• #10

The NF2 chipset is only designed to handle up to 3 gig of memory. While I have seen 2 gig DDR sticks, generally the largest is 1 gig. So, if there were 4 slots then someone would try to fill all four with 1 gig modules, and that won't work.
Actually, unlike nForce, nForce2 has a third memory control line which NVIDIA claims will improve the performance and stability. This is from an article from The Tech Report webpage.

 

OP

soundfx4

Member

​

Joined

Feb 2, 2001

Location

Roanoke, VA

• Oct 11, 2003

• Thread Starter
• #11

four memory slots doesn't bring up a conflict at all as far as max ram. It is very simple. You just use two 1GB sticks in one channel, and two 512 sticks in the other channel and BINGO! 3 gigodabytes! I still don't get how three slots will work with dual channel though

 

PDL

Member

​

Joined

Apr 21, 2001

Location

OH-Heartland of the USA

• Oct 11, 2003

• #12

As stated, my reference was to the possibility that someone may try to put 4-1 gig modules in there, which WOULD be a conflict.

Slot 1 & 2 are on the same memory channel. Dual works when memory is in BOTH channels. As stated in most manuals, you can populate via slot 1&3, 2&3 or 1,2&3 to get dual DDR.

 

OP

soundfx4

Member

​

Joined

Feb 2, 2001

Location

Roanoke, VA

• Oct 12, 2003

• Thread Starter
• #13

so let's see what I got here, dual channel memory works off of two channels, each channel operating at whatever the DDR speed is right? And by having a stick in slots 1 and 2 they are acting as one channel even though they are physically in two different slots. And the third stick is in the other channel. But of coarse all three sticks have to be the exact same, am I right? And on the gigabyte boards they are color coded for each channel since they have four slots, right? Someone correct me if I have anything wrong, or add anything if you want to. Thanks everyone!!