I have .. 2 x RAM DDR266 512 MB (PC2100) in slots 1 & 2 currently on my MoBo. The 3rd slot is vacant. This is deployed in a 1U server. I want to upgrade the RAM to PC3200.

http://www.asrock.com/Drivers/Manual/P4S61_UM.pdf

"PC3200 (DDR400) for 1 DIMM slots, Max. 1GB" ...what does that mean?

that to me means if you are going to use PC3200 memory then that board will only support
the usage of 1 stick of ddr400 and you can only put in a maximum of 1 stick no more than
1 GB ..

Also, don't mix and match RAM of different speeds. PC2100 is slower that PC 3200, and if you were to put one of each into a single machine, most likely it would only be a matter of time before your system got hung. To say it a different way, if you want to drop additional RAM into an empty slot, make sure it's identical to the existing RAM. -- J.W.

that would be a myth JW, its the same as when they said don't put pc133 with pc100,
and also the same when they say don't mix gold pin EDO ram with silver pin EDO ram,
or dont' mix different speed EDO ram (ex, 1 at 60 ns and one at 70ns) .. the same as below
would apply, they would run at 60ns if that was the case ...
... but it first states that you can only use one dimm if you use pc3200 ram so you wouldn't be able to mix and match, but if you were to use the other speeds, such as pc2700, which states that you can use 2 sticks, then if you went ahead and put in 1 pc2700, and 1 pc2100 then all that would happen is that the machine has no
choice but to clock down the pc2700 to run at pc2100, so in the end, the ram is only
going to run as slow as the slowest rated stick that is inserted ...

I didn't see any 1GB PC3200 to buy online?

Seems like maybe my better option is PC2700 cause then I could use 2 - 1GB sticks?

... except that in the past mis-matched memory sticks have caused crashes, at least for me. All I can say is that after seeing this happen a few times, and seeing that it didn't happen if the memory did match, there seemed to be a pretty clear cause and effect relationship. That's a lesson I learned many years ago, so maybe memory now might be more forgiving, but at least for me I see no point in risking it. Besides, if the effective speed of RAM would be limited to the slowest stick, why waste money on faster RAM if you can't use that extra speed. -- J.W.

i wouldnt really mix 3200 and 2100, you may not be able to

however you can mix 1600(rare), 2100 and 2700 or PC133 and 100, it will always go with the lowest speed

there is no advantage to useing PC2700 memory in a PC2100 board, other than if you plan to update to a PC2700 board.

also some memory may not work with other speeds, but this is usally cheaper or rebuilt RAM sticks. Also last time i saw any problems like that were in PC100 and 133.

prebuilt systems may also have issues, example; compaq, HPand DELL. most memmory issues i have seen where with those computers.

Who said anything about this being a PC2100 MoBo? Obviously this MoBo supports up to PC3200, but only 1GB in 1 slot. So to get MORE .. faster RAM my options are to get PC2700, 2 sticks of 1GB ea. ?

What's better 1 GB of PC3200 or 1 GB of PC2100 on this MoBo?

exactly the point

what do you think ? put it in a different context :
whats better a 91 mustang or a 91 chevette ?
whats better 1 gig of faster ram, or 1 gig of slower ram

Well if I could focus more on what I'm asking, maybe I could could understand the answers. Yes 1 GB of faster ram is preferred over the same amoung of slower ram, but there are comments being made about this being a PC2100 MoBo which doesn't seem the case. However to get more RAM I have to go with slower ram..

so then maybe the question is..1 GB PC3200 vs 2GB PC2700 Memory vs Speed...what would be better in a 1U server?

More memory is generally a better bet than less memory pretty much all the time. Personally, if I were you I'd choose the 2G of 2700.

By the way, if you are looking for 1G sticks of RAM, check out Newegg here You can use the Advanced Search tool on the left to zero in on the speed and size you're interested in, and Newegg's prices and service are awesome -- J.W.

Well this box has been somewhat problematic, the MoBo is actually a replacement of the original after the box wouldn't come up from a failed IDE drive. So the RAM is from the original MoBo (checks fine) which only had 2 slots.

With the new MoBo I still had troubles running an Ensim hosting appliance as the 2nd IDE drive kept giving DMA errors and eventually would go down with inode failures. The original 2nd IDE drive went down eventually with Bad Sectors.

I've since hacked Ensim off the box so its acting as a real server for now on a single IDE drive. Its handling my 2 main sites (100GB/month) without trouble but it seems maxed on RAM all the time. See top report below.

Not sure if the speed of the RAM with the overhead of the hosting appliance wasn't to blame for the dma problems with the drive. The load would run at 10 and the HD just never seemed to stop spinning...but again I've removed the overhead of the virtual hosting appliance and its "ok" now. But if I add another 100 domains I'm not sure if I won't hit the same road block.

18:32:45 up 10 days, 22:57, 1 user, load average: 0.12, 0.12, 0.13
78 processes: 76 sleeping, 2 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU states: cpu user nice system irq softirq iowait idle
total 5.9% 0.0% 2.9% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 91.0%
Mem: 1000284k av, 886516k used, 113768k free, 0k shrd, 132604k buff
254512k active, 486204k inactive
Swap: 2024148k av, 48004k used, 1976144k free 420816k cached