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Ram Problem?

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by ogie_2001

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I have an Intel Pentium III 450 computer with a Tekram BX440 100MHz motherboard that originally came with 128mb of sdram (pc 100). The operating system is ME. A month ago I added a 128 mb stick of sdram (pc 133) ram in the first slot and moved the original stick to the second slot. Everything ran fine and I believed my local computer store that pc 133 ram could be used on a 100 MHz system without causing any problems.

Two weeks ago I installed a 256 mb stick (pc 133) in the first slot and moved the 128 mb (pc 133) stick to the second slot, removed and sold the original pc 100.

All of a sudden after two weeks some of the problems I am encountering are:
? System reboots all by itself for no reason
? Some programs not operating properly
? Program settings unexplainably change
? Programs disappear from the system tray
? Shut down errors and freezes
? Entire computer freezes up

So my question is since there has been no other changes to my system and I removed the last two programs I added after changing ram to rule out program conflicts, scan disked, defragged and scanned for viruses; can my system use pc 133 ram? If not why didn?t these problems occur immediately after changing the ram? Can ram cause these problems or am I looking for another cause?

11 replies

by nvpaladin

Have you tried removing the 256 and just running the 128 in the first bank? This would help narrow it down real quick. Yes you can use 133 and yes ram can cause weird problems, Hope this helps

by russ werner

Your motherboard manual will tell you what combinations of RAM can be used. Apparently your motherboard can handle 256 megs or it wouldn't have worked when you first added the additional 128 megs. When you went to 384 megs you started to have problems. This isn't caused by the PC133 speeds, it is either caused by the total RAM installed (384 megs) or one of the sdram sticks is bad. I would refer to the motherboard manual an see the recommended combinations, and if what you are installining is agood combination, then remove one at a time to see which one is causing the problems.

by dmiles

Yes your memory will cause problems of this sort and you were not getting these type of problems before because you had the PC100 ram installed in the system,which was being reconized by the BIOS as the primary memory.
Now that you switched to PC133,which may not be fully supported by the motherboard.
Check the manufacturers web site or manual to find info that refers to PC133 memory and bios settings for the motherboard.
Also I would check the Bios for upgrade,that to may be causing this problem.

by csmith

I would try running the system with just the 256 Meg DIMM, and then try running it with just the 128 Meg DIMM installed.
This should tell you if the DIMMs are good.
Only if the problem persists, would I consider other causes such as the power supply, BIOS corruption, bad USB, etc.
Regards, Chris

by dwooming

The computer may have been using the PC100 DIMM all along. I agree with the others. Isolate the DIMMS to narrow down the problem.

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