system keeps locking

[dyoung413]

ok here is the deal, i just got a stick of 256 mb pc 133 ram from crucial. before my system was very stable, never used to lock up. once i put this ram in, it has started running really slow sometimes and locking up occasionally. i was running a dual pII 400 and 500 with pc 100 32, 64, 128 sticks of ram. all i added was the memory. anyone have any suggestions of how i could fix this problem? i was thinking maybe my settings were on auto detect for the ram speed, and it was detecting pc133 so my pc100 ram was trying to run on that and that was causing the lock up. i havent been able to solve it yet tho. any imput would be appreciated. thanks derek

[sbp]

Your motherboard may not take that big a ram stick.
In addition, some motherboards want the biggest stick of ram in first dimm slot.
Also there may be conflicts using different sizes of ram.

What to do: Try the 256mb of ram by itself and see what result is. Try the stick of ram in different dimm slots.

[Dave_7]

Right... don't most (older) Intel Chipset motherboards need a special 256 MB stick? Not just the $20 generic kind? I know that the VIA boards will take just about anything, but the Intel Chipsets are more fickle.

Check the motherboard manual (or specs on-line).


Dave.

[MusashiM]

Originally posted by chosenfool
yep, as sbp mentioned, DIMM SLOT placement is crucial (no pun intended :)).


:heh: Sorry, I love puns...

but anyways, there is the possibility that one of the ram chips is bad altogether. I didn't think this was possible, but one of my PC133 chips was running fine and then one day just crapped out on me. Took me for ever to troubleshoot what was wrong with my system. I doubt that's what happened here because it started right after you added the new chip. It's still a possibility...