I upgraded my RAM from 16 GB to 32 GB by adding two new sticks, but I noticed something strange: the speed dropped from 4400 MT/s to 2000 MT/s when I initially installed the new sticks in slots 1 and 3, with the old sticks in 2 and 4. However, after swapping them so that the new sticks are in 1 and 2 and the old sticks are in 3 and 4, my speed jumped back up to a usable 4000 MT/s. I'm confused about why this happened. Wouldn't dual channel configurations mean more speed? How come just swapping the sticks around made such a significant difference? By the way, I don't have XMP enabled on my motherboard. Thanks, Lenovo!
4 Answers
It’s interesting—some users have reported issues when using 4x8 GB RAM configurations. I rarely see problems with 2x16 GB sticks though. It might just be that your setup prefers a simpler arrangement!
Honestly, that's a solid question for Lenovo's support, but it is definitely bizarre. Some motherboards just have very specific preferences for RAM configurations.
The reason you saw that speed boost is because slots 1 and 2 share channel A on the memory controller, whereas slots 3 and 4 share channel B. With your setup, having the new and old sticks on each channel could’ve caused instability, which resulted in the lower speed. When you switched them, the matched sticks might have trained better together, improving performance!
When you started, your RAM had the new and old sticks mixed across channels. After you reorganized them, each channel had a set of sticks that worked well together. This can sometimes give a wider tolerance margin, which helps with speed. That’s why it’s often a good idea to swap RAM sticks around when you encounter issues—sometimes it surprisingly helps! I had a similar experience with my 4x DDR3 setup where only one specific order worked right.
Yeah, that makes sense! I thought I had the new and old sticks set up correctly, but I guess the motherboard's preferences are really varied!