In this episode,
we're identifying the proper arrangement of your system memory
and determining exactly how to install it.
Stick around.
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Hello, ladies and gentlemen,
thank you for tuning in to more of the Hands-On PC Build, that's right.
Today is all about our system memory.
And really, I have to start out with saying that,
if you're going to install your system memory
and populate all of the DIMM slots,
every DIMM slot that you have on the motherboard,
then some of the things that I'm going to say
aren't really going to apply to you.
I would just give you a piece of advice,
make sure that it's the same vendor,
the same make and model across all of the DIMM slots
so that you get the performance that you need.
However, let's take a look at the bench here,
and we have a couple of sticks.
We've got a two DIMM modules set here.
Notice that it says, right there it says 2X8GB,
it's a 16GB kick, but it's only two memory modules.
So in order to take advantage of what's known
as dual-channel memory architecture, in this case,
really any multichannel architecture,
whether it's dual-channel, triple channel, quad-channel,
you want to make sure that you pay attention first
to the vendor specifications and make sure that you installed them
in the appropriate positions on the motherboard.
Now, like I said, as a reminder,
if you're going to populate all of the DIMM slots
on the motherboard, that's okay.
Just make sure same memory, same vendor, same speed,
make and model, and you'll be okay.
However, if we're going to leave some of these open,
we want to make sure that we use both of the channels
or more than a single channel to get the total performance
out of the memory that we want.
So, to kind of show you what I'm talking about here,
let's take a bird's eye view.
And one of the things you're going to see here
on our motherboard is the fact
that we've got a little bit of a color-coding,
and I'm going to go a little bit farther than that too.
Notice that we've got some gray
and we've also got some black DIMM sockets
or slots on the motherboard here.
Notice we got two gray and we got two black, all right?
Now, I also want you to pay attention to the markings
that we have right here because you'll see they all say DDR4.
But notice that there is a B and there's A.
We got B1, B2, we got A1, A2.
Now I'm going to refer to these as positions
across all four of these DIMM modules.
This first position right here that we see, that's B1,
the second position here, that's B2, the third position,
that's A1, and then the fourth position, that's A2.
Now, let's pay attention to the numerical value.
Notice that B1 and A1 are the gray slots on the motherboard, all right?
Notice that B2 and A2 are the black DIMM slots on the motherboard.
These represent the individual dual channels.
The gray slots are, let's say, Channel one, that's B1 and A1.
The black slots, positions two and positions four,
that's our second channel,
which would line up to B2 and A2, all right?
Now, when we go to install these memory modules
since we're not populating all four of them,
we want to pick which color here we want to pair these up with.
Now, I'm going to go ahead,
and what I'm going to do is
I'm going to choose the B2 and then the A2.
And you might notice that right here we've taken off the fan cover
because it gives us a little bit more room to work with.
So what do you say?
We go ahead and we're going to take our RAM modules,
and I'm going to take the very first one out.
I do have my anti-static wrist strap on, and that's very important.
Remember, as we've told you,
you want to take the necessary precautions
to avoid any static discharge, and you'll also notice
that I'm holding on to the sides of the board here.
I'm not holding on directly to any of the circuitry
because I don't want to leave the oils in my hands on this PCB
or the printed circuit board because they're very caustic.
And what we'll do is we'll take this one
and we'll go ahead and we'll install that in the first position
or I should say second position, remember, that's B2.
And I'm going to just open these up here
and then what we'll do is we'll just gently put
our memory module in there, and you'll hear it click into place
and notice that the tabs lock around the memory.
That means that this is inserted appropriately
and that module is ready to go.
The next thing that we're going to do
is we'll take, remember, our A2 position.
I'll go ahead and while we're looking at it,
I'm going to open these up.
And what do you say?
We go ahead and we'll take our second memory module.
Again, being mindful of things like electrostatic discharge.
Again, when I'm holding this memory module,
notice that I'm not actually touching the circuitry,
we don't want to do that.
And what we'll do is we'll just come down here,
and we'll just install this in that final position here.
And again, just gently rocking it back and forth
until you feel the little latches.click into place
because they're grabbing the side of the memory.
Now what we've done here is if I decide
that I want to go back and I want to install, let's say,
and populate all of these, then what I'm going to do
is I'm going to go back and I'm going to get another
two module 16GB kit and I will get the same one.
Crucial, it'll be your DDR4 and that'll be the 2666
to make sure that it matches what we already have in here.
So ladies and gentlemen, there you go.
What we had to do here is we had to identify
the appropriate arrangement to make sure
that we're taking advantage of the multichannel architecture,
and then finally determining how to install your system memory.
Thank you for watching ITProTV.