I have a e14 Thinkpad gen 5 Intel 1335u with 8gb soldered ram and a 8gb 3200 ddr4 stick. 16 is not enough ram for my use as a developer so I put a 16gb stick in knowing only first 16 will run dual channel. Now my computer crashes randomly with high memory usage… read online that a 32gb is more stable single channel but I’m skeptical. Stability is pretty important to me as this is how I earn a living what do you all think? Also I would just buy a 32 and try it but everything got pricey the last 2 month

s

EDIT: ran memtest after crashes got worse, went back to stock 8gb and gave up. Some weird issue with used 16 stick

  • just_another_person@lemmy.world
    01·
    20 days ago

    If the RAM timings are not exactly the same, you’re going to have instability issues. This is why it’s always recommended to install pairs of the same exact model and brand, the clock timings.

    I doubt that BIOS is going to give you the specs you need, but somewhere you’ll likely be able to find the timings and compatible memory for this machine. You’ll generally need something faster than what’s installed so it can step it’s timings down to be more in sync.

    • db2@lemmy.world
      1·
      20 days ago

      Any reasonably modern memory controller will clock the memory at the slowest one in dual channel. This hasn’t been an issue for decades.

      • just_another_person@lemmy.world
        0·
        20 days ago

        100% untrue. While a North Bridge controller can detect and attempt to set the clock frequency, there is absolutely no way to tell if both pieces of a mismatched pair will actually support the timings suggested or set by the controller, which will almost certainly default to whatever the on-board memory supports.

        That along with the unknowns of whether it attempts to set channel ranks, which is almost certainly NOT an option to manually configure in a Thinkpad.

        Not sure where you heard otherwise, but you’ve been misinformed.

        This machine is also working with memory soldered on the board which comes with a whole host of other unknowns, which is why you look up what the timings are first and attempt to match that.