MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum RAM problem

Question

My spec:
AMD64 3000+ Venice
1gb RAM Elixir
1 x Maxtor 120gb IDE
1 x Maxtor 200gb SATA
1 x Maxtor 200gb IDE
ATI Radeon x800 pro 256mb
I have a K8N Neo2 Platinum motherboard, the problem is that when I try to add in another 512mb stick the system won't even boot up. I have tried other brands and amounts but still to no avail.
I boot the system up and the monitor won't even switch on, but if I take out the 512 stick it works fine.
Any ideas?

Answer 1

Not quite.
Use the color codes .
If you have matched sticks in density (size) and timings (spd data) you can run dual channel.
This means having one stick in memory channel 1 ( green ) and another in memory channel2 (purple )
Theese are physically wired next to eachother on the motherboard , from cpu and upwards..
You can not do that , with that mismatched modules the cpu can't initialize it's memory controller .
So your only choice is to run two modules with single memory channel config .
Use the colorcodes to make sure you use signgle memory channel config (since you have mismatched sticks and the A64 memory controller cant run those in dual mode)
So your choice is to use either both green slots or both of the purple ones .
Place the one module with the higest cas rating (slowest) in the green slot with the lowest slot number (marked on the board) .
And the other stick on the green slot that remains .