how does computer ram actually work?

jason-fjason-f
in Computers & Internet

yeah i was curious to know. i was actually told that if you i have a gig of ddr400 and 2 sticks of ddr266 and my boards only capable of running 266 that it would drop that 400 down to 266 and that i would have a 1 1/4gb of 266. what if it can handle 400 how would it handle that 266?

Update:

ps what if the mobo ran at 400 would it still drop the 400 stick down to 266 since i have 2 sticks of 266

Comments

  • eddie1983eddie1983

    RAM short for Random Access Memory is where programs are stored whilst in use

    so your operating system, internet browser, game of solitaire etc... when running are running from the RAM (except bits that require loading from the hard drive) RAM is used as it is much faster than constantly running it from the hard drive, in a computer it is all 0's and 1's in a system called binary it is how the computer works

    RAM is thousands of transistors (switches - which are the black parts) on a chip that connects and communicates to the motherboard a program just tells the RAM what to do i.e. in what sequence it has to have 1's (switched on) and 0's (switched off) on the thousands of transistors on its board

    you questioned about the speed a motherboard will detect how the RAM is if it is compatable if the RAM is faster than the speed of the motherboard the RAM will run at the speed of the motherboard, if the motherboard is faster than the RAM then motherboard will slow down to the speed of the RAM

    hope this helps

  • aleksaleks

    I didn't get the part about 1 1/4GB .. All your RAM will run with the speed of the slowest - 266MHz in your case.

    If your board supported 400MHz and you had mixed 400/266 MHz sticks it's supposed to run at 266MHz but you might be able to manually set the speed at 400MHz and there is a good chance that it would work. in this case 266MHz RAM is overclocked to 400MHz and probably less stable.

  • william-dwilliam-d

    computer RAM works very similarly to Flash memory. (You know, you memory stick thing?) Except it is attached directly to the CPU to make it all work together much faster.

    RAM Consists of BILLIONS of tiny "switches" on means one, off means 0. This creates the entire platform to use BINARY. Binary is what makes up all the information on your computer, therefore, your entire computer relies on something being on, and something being off.

    The entire world STILL runs on binary!

  • anonymousanonymous

    favorite site on EARTH

    http://www.howstuffworks.com/ram.htm

    http://computer.howstuffworks.com/computer-memory....

    http://www.howstuffworks.com/ram4.htm

    btw, the function can be on hard drive (store data) but it would be WAY WAY WAY slower. and the files are temparay thats why when you turn off computer or it unplugs, the memory is wiped and you lose all unsafed stuff

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