In this video, part of our “Back to Basics” series
I’m going to show you how to install DDR4 in your motherboard and then not only how to install it
but then how to configure it so let's get started now the motherboard that I’ll be using for
this example is the Asus ROG STRIX b550-F Gaming Wi-Fi motherboard it's basically going
to be the same for any DDR4 motherboard there will be some differences but I’ll go
over that in one second so first off. these are our DIMM slots DIMM standing for dual
inline memory module so you'll notice there is DIMM B1 DIMM B2 DIMM A1 and DIMM A2, so B1,
B2, A1, A2, B2, and A2 they're essentially one and then B1 and A1 they're essentially one
what I mean by that is when you buy memory modules typically they're going to come in
a set of two though sometimes they'll come in a single one but in the case of two you're
going to be installing them in B2 and A2 so first off what we're going to want to do is unlock
the memory so to unlock we'll just go ahead and push this out and then that's B2 and then
this is A2 so now we've just unlocked the DIMM slot some will also have it on this left
side but on this particular motherboard it just slides in so you'll notice there's a little
line right over here on the motherboard that goes ahead and coincides with the little notch
on the memory module with that little line if you were to drop in a stick of RAM incorrectly
you'll notice the lines right over here but the line on the motherboard is right over here
that's not going to allow the RAM to sit properly so the RAM is not going to go all the way in
it's going to see-saw there whatever you do, do not force it in you'll break that and you
might end up breaking a little bit more so turning lifting this out and turning it around
we can go ahead and line the RAM in place here. And then we can just go ahead and
push down which will go ahead and lock this in place automatically that went
ahead and locked in locking the memory in place. That locks right in here again I’ll go
ahead and just drop it right in here. And now we'll go ahead and do the same with this
module right over here and I’ll slide it over a little bit so you can see it coming from over
here I’m sliding it right in the little notch right over here first off right in here and
then dropping it in the notch right over here. And just pushing down and that goes ahead locks
it over here and then it locks it over here as well be very careful when you install RAM that
you don't push so hard that you actually end up slamming the memory forward or backwards
potentially damaging the DIMM slots right along here this is for two modules now
there are times when you only buy one module for that you would install the RAM in slot B2
right over here where we installed it in before. And we'll just go ahead and lock
this one not that we need to but it just makes it look a little bit nicer
and we'll go ahead and take this one out. Now there are times when you'll be buying. Four sticks of RAM one would think you just
dropped them all in one two three four and you're good to go you have to make sure like we
did before on B2 and A2 that you have the matching sets all together for example you'll notice
right under here and it's going to be different on every single memory module but for example
on the G-Skill Trident Z NEO for example right down here in very tiny font we'll see ending in
295 that's actually the date and lot code now grabbing another random module we'll see right
up here this ends in 294 we got lucky on these, these are matching but for example if we have
294 over here and then we have 296 right over here these may not work together they're typically
programmed together in a set of two or if you're buying a complete kit all in a set of four
if you already have a kit of two and later on you're going to buy another kit of two and then
you're going to build your machine you have to be incredibly careful that you match up the different
types of memory so for example like I showed you we installed the memory in B2 and A2 so what
you're going to do here is you're going to grab 294 and then 293 put these two this one on B2 and
this one on A2 and then you're going to grab 296 and 295 and install this one on B1 and this one
on A1 that way you have these two on one channel. And these two on another channel now some of you
may already have four modules working together even though they may not be on the same bank
and chances are they will work but there are occasional chances that they won't work and they
will work better once you match it up the way I mentioned here also on top of that they're going
to work much better once you tighten the timings enable XMP and do different things like that
so once you're playing with XMP settings and tightening times you're going to want to make
sure that everything is perfect now you're asking what is XMP and what are timings well
for that I need to bring you over to a machine so let's go over there real quick you'll be
able to get into the bias by hitting the delete key F2 whatever your motherboard requires
to get into the bios then we'll come into advanced mode then we'll go to ai tweaker and mind
you it'll be different in every single motherboard but for example you're going to want to make
sure that your RAM supports XMP profiles XMP profiles are great because they automatically
set everything for you so for example under ai overclock tuner this is an Asus board we'll click
auto here and then we can select XMP1 extreme memory profile one or extreme memory profile two
we'll select one over here and you'll notice when we did that it automatically set XMP to XMP DDR4
3603 megahertz running at a cast latency of 16 19 39-1 so the lower the latency the faster the RAM
and then if we go over here to ai overclock tuner click on that XMP we'll go to two many
times it'll have a completely different XMP profile maybe a little bit faster or
maybe a little bit slower so we'll go back under one over here one we selected XMP
profile number one we'll go down over here and we'll go down under dram timing control we'll
notice it set the cast latency to 16 the rest to cast latency to 19 the raspberry time to 19 and
the rest at time to 39 now the one that we saw the dash one would be the command rate we can put
that to one end here but we can also leave it to auto as well because it's auto set to the XMP
profile and this goes ahead and sets everything for you XMP is going to be just about on every
motherboard the original board I showed you was an AMD chipset for an Asus board on this particular
board it's an intel chipset in this bios it's called XMP on the Asus AMD board it's called DOCP
direct overclocking profile now aside from that they're the same we can go ahead hit F10 to save
and exit and then easily enough we'll be back into windows in a matter of seconds of course
depending how your system is set up but since this is a brand new board chances are you have
to reinstall windows or install windows now unfortunately it's not always this perfect
sometimes you'll have either faster or slower RAM and you have a perfect XMP profile set or you
have your timing set and maybe the RAM dies something happens and you have to replace the RAM
but the RAM that you bought has different timings and you have to adjust things in order to get
that to work you're going to have to do a little surgery it's not horrible so first off if it's not
already off go ahead and shut it off real quick every single motherboard has a CMOS battery on
this particular board it's right over here and I’ll show you on the other motherboard in a second
so that you get a better idea the location of the CMOS battery of course depends on the model of
the motherboard so what I’m going to do is on the power supply flick the power switch off so now
I’m going to go ahead and remove this CMOS battery okay I just pulled it out I used my
nail and just kind of pulled it out of there now I’m going to give it about 30
seconds 30 seconds with the CMOS battery outside of the system and no power going to the
system erases the BIOS now afterwards we have to go back into the bios and reset everything I’m
doing this in the event that we pop in the memory and the system doesn't post okay what this will
do it'll set everything back to factory defaults so that we can go in and actually enable
the DOCP or XMP and then of course we'll have to go back in and set all the settings
so I’m going to go ahead and put this back in Now I’m going to turn the system back on. So now we see on the screen please enter setup to
recover BIOS settings because we've just erased everything so now we'll hit F1 to run setup which
means go into the BIOS now again we'll go back to F7 advanced mode we'll go into exit and load
optimize defaults and then we'll go ahead and set all the settings but the main setting we're
going to set now is ai overclock tuner XMP profile which again enables everything and sets everything
automatically for us for the memory timing and the frequency and let me just set up the, the
rest of everything real quick to save and exit. And as it occurred before the system turns off
because we've made so many changes in the bios now that we're in the operating system we can
right click on the start button go to task manager we'll go to performance and then we'll click
on memory and then here we can see the speed of our RAM slots used 204 form factor DIMM mind you
we can use a bunch of different programs to see all of this but this is built right into windows
and lets us see everything so in this video we've gone over how to install your new RAM be it one
module two modules or four modules then one thing incredibly important is also how to match them
up by date and lot codes that way you make sure not only that you get your RAM working but you
get your RAM working perfectly then after we've physically installed it we went into the bios and
then manually set it to XMP that way we don't have to worry about setting manual cast rash trash and
command settings it all automatically set to force voltages as well but of course if you wanted to
you can always do that manually I showed you the easy way with XMP or DOCP but after that that's
all on you so I hope I’ve helped you in on that now during this video we did talk a little bit
about loading into windows and everything and if you have any issues on that on the video right up
here I showed you how to install a brand new SSD and then how to install Windows 10 onto it
Windows 11 will be just totally the same hopefully I’ve been able to help you and if
you have any questions comments or concerns please do leave them down below I answer all
questions Iggy with ThisBytesForYou out, see you.