Hi All,
Sorry for my newbie question, I'm not good in computers.
My laptop is using 1x Samsung 16gb 2666 ram (16gb 2Rx8 PC4-2666v-SE1-11), can I buy another 16gb ram but different brand but same specs? Has anyone tried it before?
Can anyone please recommend a brand?
Thanks heaps!
No
I've done this before in laptops and NUCs, with Samsung and Kingston never had an issue. Although they were slower DDR3.
Kingston has never caused issues for me no matter what other RAM I paired it with..
But general conscience is to get the same brand to avoid headache
consensus?
If your motherboard supports it then yes you can. Just make sure it matches the speed of your current ram and is supported by the motherboard. My main Desktop PC currently has mismatched ram and is working/performing well. Some of my servers are also using non-matching ECC memory and have been running 24/7 with no issues.
More important than the brand is ensuring the voltage, speed and timings are identical.
As long as it's a reputable brand it should work fine.
I'm running 4 DIMMs from two different brands in my current PC. Heck I used to run RAM at slightly different voltages (but not above the maximum rated RAM voltage for that chipset) with no issues for a long time.
Yes.
However if it's dual,tri,quad channel motherboard you'll want to install identical ones for best performance, otherwise they'll run at the speed of the slowest one.
Worst case is it won't pass the post, random restarts etc. But I've never seen this.
I had never seen it either until I just built a Threadripper PC.
Bought a 4 stick kit and it randomly bluescreens and won't boot to POST so that the CMOS needs to be reset. Even though MSI recommends this RAM kit for the mobo.
Been running the same kit in an Intel PC with no issues for two days now.
Was waiting for this lol.
As I read "I had never seen it either until" was like AMD Zen, yup thread ripper.
Have you tested out rpcs3 yet?
However if it's dual,tri,quad channel motherboard you'll want to install identical ones for best performance, otherwise they'll run at the speed of the slowest one.
OP has a laptop and if it came from the factory populated with only one SODIMM then it may only have a single DIMM slot, so it'll be running in a single channel configuration, which is the norm for smaller form-factor Ultrabooks.
Some laptops do come from the factory with one out of two DIMM slots occupied, but a majority with two DIMM slots will be running in a dual-channel configuration with two SODIMMs.
It can sometimes cause issues.
I would recommend using the same brand if possible.