Ram problems

[ICOM]

For awhile now my ram has been giving me troubles. My computer would just randomly restart. I'd take one of the two 256 chips out and it would work fine, but slower of course. I got my ram replaced twice to fix this problem. It's been working fine for a few months, but recently I decided to take advantage of the extra slot and add a 512 ram chip. The chips are all ddr btw.
The computer registers like around 950 ram. The thing is once I did this the computer went back to its old ways of constant restarting and now I get ie closing a lot now. Is my computer causing ram to crap out? I doubt I got a bad 512 chip unless my luck is THAT BAD. Anyways, anyone got any ideas?

[Echo419]

Umm... the RAM shouldnt have any influence on how your computer acts. It sounds to me like u just need to reformat to definitly fix it. Or check and see if your power supply is starting to wear out

[ICOM]

this just starting happening the day i put the new ram in.... and i reformated few weeks ago.

[Echo419]

Alrite man, add my brother to your aim list his name is WARRIORROCKER, hell be on within the next couple days hes a friends rite now, He's A+ Certified he 99% sure can help you man. hes gooooood ill let him him know to be expecting u

[RapidTransit]

Are they all the same type and is it a good brand, what version of windows are you using, what size power supply, proper ventilation?

[ICOM]

yes same type,brand is simpletech

[xmetal2001]

Umm... the RAM shouldnt have any influence on how your computer acts. It sounds to me like u just need to reformat to definitly fix it. Or check and see if your power supply is starting to wear out

Not true, A faulty stick of ram can cause many problems. Trust me, Its happened to me.

Run Memtest86. Your gonna have to create a bootdisk and let it run for quite a while. Preferably overnight.

If it finds ANY errors, remove sticks and test them individually to locate the bad stick. RMA it.

[Miscue]

I find the reference to the A+ certified person... quite hilarious. That's one certification you don't talk about because it's embarrassing.

Try to set your memory timing settings manually, and make sure it's correct for the memory you have. Some VIA chipsets and at least one other if I can remember, (I dunno what you have), have been flaky and what it sets to auto with your memory does not behave well.

[ICOM]

i heard you cant run a 512ram chip with a 256 ram chip?

[digitard]

Make sure your memory is the same latency and so forth.

RAM can easily cause restarts, pauses, and so forth. I've had many a run in with bad ram working for HP and Insight.com (i actually got to sleep at work sometimes at Insight.com).

Confirm your boards BIOS version, if older, is current enough to support larger memory quantities.

YES ... you can run 256 and 512, i've done it for years. I recently swapped out my 256 and just threw a 512 in its place (for a gig) cause of video editing.

Yeah A+ training is a joke now. How many times doing tech work I had someone call up going "first off I'm a+ certified" trying to sound smart and when I had to explain that P4's really didn't have a 400mhz FSB they used quad pathways they'd sound dumbfounded (god i miss those days) so their problem was that they were just stupid.

Memtest is a GREAT program. I highly recommend it.