Upgrading to 1 Gig of ram noob Q's

Hello,

I'm planning to buy an extra 512MB stick of my current Samsung PC3200 ram to equal a 1 gig.

I noticed the ram price near my area are the cheapest right now. But i'm not sure how long this will last and that's why i plan to get more ram since i guess 1 gig it's becoming more mainstream now for gamers?

Q1. My noob question is since i'm overclocked right now at (200x11=2200Mhz) and by adding extra ram i will need to reset my BIOS to "optimized defaults"? Will i need to reset the jumpers and clear my CMOS as well just to make sure?

Q2. And after adding the same brand/speed of memory would i still need to up my external clock by small increments to reach 200 Mhz?

I know the PC-3200 is rated at 200Mhz, but should i be cautious and see if it boots up at different speed just to be safe and stable?

Q3. My ram is not the greatest performance but it's currently set at "Optimal" with timings of 2.5,3,3,8? Should i try some other timings?

Thanks.

well.. for first thing i think u want to do is take out the ram stick u got. and when u buy the new one stick it in alone.

run memtest at the setting u have in the bios and if it passes for a few hours ..then your good. try both sticks and if u get any errors then back off on the oc.

but if u can get 5 hours with both your sticks then you shold be able to run stable with your oc

You will not need to reset the BIOS. But, you might back off the O/C a little and relax the timings a little just until you make sure the two sticks play well together.

sorry for the late reply and thx for replying

@wizard james, that sounds like a good idea to test the new stick alone to see if there are any errors. I'm going to run the new stick at 200 FSB to check if there are any errors in memtest86. I heard about memtest86, but i never used it so what menu/option do i use to test for a couple of hours? If there are errors should i relax the timings or increase the memory voltage up a notch?

Oh yeah from my little research i came across another memory tester called "Microsoft Windows Memory Diagnostic". I read it's much faster and is good at detecting errors too. Anyone tried it? Any feedback?

http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp
http://www.softpedia.com/public/cat/12/7/12-7-28.shtml


@batboy, Ok i'll try to do that maybe even stick to my original timings because i didn't have any problems with them.

I'm going on a short trip for a couple of days with no access to a computer so thanks in advance!