I was asked the other day to check out a server that was running much slower than anticipated. I checked the OS, the memory usage, whether any services were gobbling up RAM like it was going out of fashion and everything seemed ok. So I opened it up and looked inside.
I found 4 of the six banks filled with RAM, upon closer inspeaction I found 2 x 1Gb sticks of 333MHz 128bit DDR and 2 x 512Mb sticks of 64bit DDR.
I was always told two things about RAM, Install in correct multiples ie 64, 128, 256, 512 etc and dont mix 128bit and 64bit otherwise it’ll bring everything down to 64bit performance.
My doubt comes from teh fact that the supplier claimed to have checked the machine a few days ago and found nothing wrong with it and is blaming the lack of performance on the software.
Im not expecting it to be the entire cause of the problem but is this mismatched 3Gb of memory going be enough of a problem to impact performance?
My mind says yes but I cant find any supporting evidence other than common sense.