Memory upgrade causes random reboots and won't wake up

[Richard Davies]

I recently upgraded my PC's memory and after upgrading, I noticed that my
computer began to randomly reboot without any sort of warning. Sometimes it
would run all day just fine and then reboot, other times it would only run
for 20-30 minutes before rebooting. These reboots would happen when the PC
was in use (like when surfing the 'net) and also when just sitting there
without anyone using it. (While the reboots seemed mostly random as to when
they would happen, I noticed that it rebooted several times when waking up
from being put to sleep.)

I previously had a 256 MB chip and a 128 MB chip. I replaced the 128 MB chip
with another 256 MB chip. (My computer uses PC100 SDRAM chips.)

I switched the chips around one day and it didn't reboot that day. However,
the computer would no longer wake up properly after being put to sleep. (I
would hear the fan start and the harddrive power back up, but the display
would not come back on.)

I was wondering if there is anything that can be done aside from removing
the new chip to help remedy these problems. Is is possible for just a
segment of the memory chip to be bad? (If so, is there a way to exclude that
memory region so it is not used?)

I would sure appreciate anyone's ideas, suggestions, and knowlege on this
problem. Thank you in advance.

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Richard Davies
(e-mail address removed)
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[Bob Knowlden]

Try the Windows Memory Diagnostic:

http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

Also: some PCs (e. g, PIII systems with the Intel 440BX chipset) can
only use low-density SDRAM. (I don't know if it's necessary, or
sufficient, but some low-density 256 MB DIMMs use 16 chips.) However, if
this were the root of your trouble, I expect that your system would be
running worse than it appears to be.

Good luck.

Bob Knowlden

Address may be altered to avoid spam. Replace nkbob with bobkn.