I recently bought a second-hand 32GB DDR4 Crucial RAM stick, which seems to be one part of a pair, but the other stick has already been sold. Since this new stick has a matching frequency with my existing 4 sticks of Corsair 16GB RAM, I tried swapping one of them out. However, I can only boot my system with the 32GB stick alone or with my original 4 Corsair sticks. Does this mean that dual channel RAM sticks are not compatible when used individually? It's going to be tough hunting down another 32GB Crucial stick on its own!
1 Answer
Mixing different RAM kits is generally not a good idea, and it can sometimes prevent your system from booting altogether. Even if the speed seems fine, there could be underlying issues. I wouldn’t recommend combining unpaired sticks if you can avoid it!
What if I went with more Crucial RAM but chose 16GB sticks instead? Would that still cause problems with the 32GB stick, or is it pretty much a headache until I find its matching partner?