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<< Solved >> Using 2 ram sticks of different frequency

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i5-3570K
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  1. MacBook Pro
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Hello guys. I would like your kind advise on the following.
I have successfully completed another hackintosh built. I used an HP 4300 pro with an Nvidia 1050ti and installed High Sierra (so as to have full acceleration with Nvidia drivers).

My problem is the following. The prebuilt HP came with a 4gb DDR3 ram clocked at 1600mhz.
I have another 4gb DDR3 ram stick, but is clocked at 1333Mhz.

Whilst both ram sticks work without any problem with Win10 (I am dual-booting), I cannot boot into High Sierra if I use both of them.
The only way to boot into High Sierra is to use only one of them (either the 1333mhz stick or the 1600mhz stick at any slot).
So there is no problem with any of the ram slots, and no problem with the sticks (since both are recognized and working in win10).

Is this a problem with Macos and Hackintosh? Do I need to use ram sticks of same frequency?


P.S.: Also do I need to use same GB ram sticks? (i.e. 4+4), or can I also use 4+8?

Thanx in advance!
 
Hello guys. I would like your kind advise on the following.
I have successfully completed another hackintosh built. I used an HP 4300 pro with an Nvidia 1050ti and installed High Sierra (so as to have full acceleration with Nvidia drivers).

My problem is the following. The prebuilt HP came with a 4gb DDR3 ram clocked at 1600mhz.
I have another 4gb DDR3 ram stick, but is clocked at 1333Mhz.

Whilst both ram sticks work without any problem with Win10 (I am dual-booting), I cannot boot into High Sierra if I use both of them.
The only way to boot into High Sierra is to use only one of them (either the 1333mhz stick or the 1600mhz stick at any slot).
So there is no problem with any of the ram slots, and no problem with the sticks (since both are recognized and working in win10).

Is this a problem with Macos and Hackintosh? Do I need to use ram sticks of same frequency?


P.S.: Also do I need to use same GB ram sticks? (i.e. 4+4), or can I also use 4+8?

Thanx in advance!

Hi there.

First things first, please update your hardware Profile with details of your build - motherboard, CPU and GPU at a minimum. I know you have mentioned the HP model and GPU type in the above, but going forward, as the post is left behind, it will help others to help you. It's also a part of the Site Tules. Thank you :thumbup:

Okay, you've already discovered what your problem is, but I wouldn't particularly blame macOS. It is just reacting as you would expect in a mixed-pair set-up. Normally pair-matching takes place at BIOS level, and if the BIOS supports it, will run both sticks at the speed of the slowest. Your experience shows macOS is more sensitive to hardware incompatibility that might affect stability. Not necessarily a bad thing.

:)
 
Hello and thanx for your kind reply.
I fixed my signature and completed the information of my builds. Hope that's ok now.

I decided to buy a 4gb ram DDR3 of the same speed (1600), so as to have a total of 8gb. I was going to buy an 8gb to be honest (so as to have 4+8) but I am afraid that I might face any incompatibility issues again, so I will play it safe and keep it at 4+4. I believe it's more than enough for this build (the HP 4300 sff build).

Thanx again!
 
So, just as an update about this matter, I did get a new 1600mhz ram stick (of different brand) and it was still not working. I could not boot.
I searched through forums etc. and I have found that when you get this problem, you should enter the details of the memory sticks inside the smbios in config.plist. So I booted using only one ram stick, mounted the efi partition, completed all the details of the ram sticks inside the SMBIOS category, saved and shut down. I installed the 2nd ram stick, booted and voila! The system booted with 8gb of ram.
I leave a screenshot here as it may help others. Ofcourse details of your ram sticks will be different.

P.S.: Nevertheless I plan on getting another ram stick exactly the same as the Kingston one.
 

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For best performance the RAM needs to be a matching pair for a dual channel system. There are various variables when choosing memory sticks: family (DDR3/4 etc), parity (ECC / none ECC), stick manufacturer, chip maker, chip foundry, size (GB), speed (MHz), chip count, how the chips are arranged, voltage (v) and latency (ns - which can have 3/4 different numbers). If the sticks dont match precisely then the system will either run to the lower spec or won't run at all depending on the BIOS and operating system.

For maximum performance, compatibility and as a rule of thumb RAM sticks should be purchased in matching pairs (or matching triplets for 3 channel systems) - a system using a matching 4GB pair (8GB total) will be preferable and faster than a mismatched pair of 4/8 (12GB total). If they match then the system can treat the pair as a single device.
 
For best performance the RAM needs to be a matching pair for a dual channel system.

For maximum performance, compatibility and as a rule of thumb RAM sticks should be purchased in matching pairs (or matching triplets for 3 channel systems) - a system using a matching 4GB pair (8GB total) will be preferable and faster than a mismatched pair of 4/8 (12GB total). If they match then the system can treat the pair as a single device.

Done! :thumbup:
 

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p.s. They need to physically match, you can’t just edit Clovers plist and pretend that they match. If the OS gets its info from the plist and that doesn’t match what the BIOS gets from the sticks then that will probably cause issues if you have overrated the memory’s performance in some way. If you manually configure the memory specs then use the info from the slower device.
 
p.s. They need to physically match, you can’t just edit Clovers plist and pretend that they match. If the OS gets its info from the plist and that doesn’t match what the BIOS gets from the sticks then that will probably cause issues if you have overrated the memory’s performance in some way. If you manually configure the memory specs then use the info from the slower device.

I bought and installed a pair of the exact same Kingston DDR3 4GB ram sticks. I did not just edit the config.plist.
 
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