RAM problem / question

John D99 wrote:
I have an Asus A8N-VM CSM mobo. It ran fine for 2 years, but
with
only 512 megs RAM things got a little crowded, so I decided to
double
the RAM.
I bought a 512 MB DDR PC3200 stick (cheapest OEM available),
and
installed it. As far as know, this is the right type RAM for
the mobo.

Everything worked fine - the new RAM was recognised in BIOS and
and
by Win XP and the various application software.

However, after anywhere from 5 to 60 minutes of running, the
computer's video will degenerate in quality and lock up, the
mouse
icon disappears, and everything freezes, requiring a reboot.
After I
pulled the new RAM, the computer went back to operating well.

What's wrong? Do I need a diferenent type of RAM, or to make
some
setting adjustment, or did I just get a bad stick, or what?

Thanks

You have received several sensible suggestions. Let me add my 2
cents. The 5 to 60 minutes before the fault shows up indicates a
defective piece that goes bad after it has warmed up.

One other thing you can try is to go into BIOS and manually set
the RAM speed to 333 (166 MHz clock). I've seen some cheapo units
labeled as DDR400 (PC3200) but are really DDR333 (PC2700). Some
are even detected by BIOS as DDR400, but cannot cope with their
rated speed. I've known several such products to run for years
without any problem as long as they are underclocked to DDR333
speed.

You can check this with Memtest86 as already suggested by others.
Run Memtest86 with RAM speed set to Auto or DDR400 (200 MHz). I
expect you'll get errors almost immediately. Then manually set it
to DDR333 speed (166 MHz), run Memtest86 again and see if the
errors go away or still show up.