so its been almost 5 years since I toyed with upgrading the ram. first attempt cost me $90 and a lot of headache. I got nowhere with trying to troubleshoot so i gave up and just lived with the 2GB. then I recently bought the debug board gen 3 vov tech. Now im able to SEE CLEARLY . but the same #$%^&*()_ CRAP is happening so when the going gets tough the tough plunk down more $ on ddr2 ram. this time KVR800D2N6/4G not the patriot stuff i got and guess what the damn server doesn't boot. cant even see bios. reset / changed the auto detect to 667 / 800 nothing... what the Flipping hell can this piece of crap work with 4gb or not im ranting after wasting 5 flipping hours of back and forth changes. i even bricked the damn thing.. i was lucky enough to reset the bios. but the age old question remains how the HELLL does one go about upgrading the ram.. I can upgrade the cpu no problem this ram thing is totally another beast of its own.. do i have to change the timing values too?. if so what do i do if that doesnt work.

Well, it has been a while since I upgraded the ram in my servers (same hardware as yours) but for me it was a plug n play. I can't remember the memory I used, but got from newegg, I will dig in and see if I can figure out for you.
But I know if you get the right memory (most likely older and maybe hard to find) it should boot, see the memory and life is good.
To tell you the truth, since I don't do much extra with my server, the extra ram is not used, but it feels like it gave it some room to work.
I just checked it and it is using 1.18 memory and I was streaming a movie with serviio. Have you remoted into your server and checked what your memory usage is? I upgraded the cpu on all 4 of my servers but only upgraded the ram on two as I was not seeing a reason to do it.

I have a media center that is the heavy lifter so my money was better spent on that system.

Hope this helps, I will check tonight and figure out what ram I used.

_________________
[X510 CPU/RAM/All 2 TB Red's] [X510 CPU/Sync'ed Backup/All 2 TB Hitachi's]
[X510 /2 in box]
[X710 LIAN LI DIY W2016E] Stablebit Drivepool [EX-503 LIAN LI 5-bay USB3 External]
Fear the Cloud

I've used two difference DIMMSs in mine:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B003 ... detailpage

I also wrote to Crucial UK back in September 2010 to ask for one of their 4GB Modules. It worked fine:
PN CT51264AA667 and their is some on the bay of e.

I don't think you will have much luck asking any other vendor to test their DDR2 offering

I used the muskin part number 991762
http://www.mediasmartserver.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=9380

_________________
[X510 CPU/RAM/All 2 TB Red's] [X510 CPU/Sync'ed Backup/All 2 TB Hitachi's]
[X510 /2 in box]
[X710 LIAN LI DIY W2016E] Stablebit Drivepool [EX-503 LIAN LI 5-bay USB3 External]
Fear the Cloud

i love you guys. so turns out the 5 sticks of ram i bought was a dud. fake Chinese crap so... does anyone have any memory for sale that will work in a ex495?. Turns out the ram I have didn't work in my ex490 i went through 3 of them ex490s and for some reason this one ex490 likes my patriot ram that ive had for almost 5 years! some reason it doesn't work in the ex495. its patriot but anyway im interested in getting ram if its worth it for the ex495. Correct memory should be plug and play.