Graphics Driver (CCC) and RAM

• Cucurbita wrote on 2011-04-21 01:39
  Okay, so I looked into my graphics card problem and more or less decided theres no helping this thing. I have another older computer that no one really uses anymore, so I took the graphics card out of it and replaced the dead one. Its not as powerful but it gets the job done I suppose.
  
  My biggest problem is that while I managed to get the driver for it to run, the Catalyst Control Center absolutely refuses to run. When I try to run it, it instantly gives me a windows error "Catalyst Control Centre: Command Line Interface has stopped working". This concerns me, just a little. If anyone thinks its a problem I should look into, please point me in the right direction as to what actions I should take.
  
  Now that I ripped out my graphics card from my old computer, I thought "hey, might as well just take everything else from it too".
  
  Currently I'm dual screening, one 23" and one 19".
  
  I moved one hard drive over, though it has 3, mostly because theres no more space in my current computer case :<
  
  There IS however, ONE slot open for ram. But I heard that just placing ram in as I see fit is not recommended. Is this true?
  
  4 slots.
  
  1. 2GB
  2. 512MB
  3. 512MB
  4. Empty
  
  Total 3GB
  
  My older computer has two 512MB chips in it, so I could move one over giving me 3.5GB ram? Is this not recommended?
• Ampersand wrote on 2011-04-21 02:20
  CCC requires some visual c++ redistributeables. I THINK it's the 2005 one. Or . Just get them all.
  
  Your ram should be ok. if you have a matching pair put them in the matched color slots.
  
  EDIT: you don't really need CCC anyway. Just get the [url=http://www2.ati.com/drivers/11-3_vista64_win7_64_dd.exe]individual driver download without CCC and save some CPU cycles.
• Joker wrote on 2011-04-21 03:06
  could be a compatibility issue with the card and your current motherboard (just a guess)
• Yoorah wrote on 2011-04-21 03:47
  I hope you uninstalled and reinstalled the latest CCC package. Otherwise, it may have configured itself for the other Radeon you had, I'm not really sure.
  
  As for RAM.. generally speaking, mixing sticks will reduce performance to that of the slowest stick...IIRC. But since it looks like you have random sticks in there already, I suppose adding another one won't cause much harm.
• Cucurbita wrote on 2011-04-21 03:50

  Quote from Yoorah;417777:

  I hope you uninstalled and reinstalled the latest CCC package. Otherwise, it may have configured itself for the other Radeon you had, I'm not really sure.
  
  As for RAM.. generally speaking, mixing sticks will reduce performance to that of the slowest stick...IIRC. But since it looks like you have random sticks in there already, I suppose adding another one won't cause much harm.

  
  
  Well, I just installed on top of it, so I don't think theres a problem.
  
  And I don't see why the manufacturer hands out computers like these if its a problem. It came like this when I bought it :\
• wolfram wrote on 2011-04-27 19:39
  Your CCC problem is due to a imcomplete uninstall of old CCC drivers. You need to use a driver uninstaller program to get ride of all ATI graphic drivers, then reinstall the new drivers.
  
  I recommend "Driver Sweeper". Its pretty straight forward. Just select it to remove all drivers or just ATI ones and run it, restart, and your done.
  
  With the RAM issue:
  Since you have 4 slots, your memory slots are configured to run in Dual-Channel mode (2x2). They should be color coded as to which slots belong together. You should run the same size memory modules 2 GB to 2GB, 512 Mb to 512 MB for your computer to run in Dual Channel mode. If your stick different sizes of RAM together, they won't run in Dual-Channel mode limiting the efficiency of your computer overall.
  
  TL;DR: It works fine, but you'll only run in single-channel mode.
  
  Also you can kinda get away with it, but you should set it to run at the lowest timings out of all the cards you have to avoid stability issues.