Too much RAM?

[rollin561]

Hey guys. Here's my story...
I originally had 128 mb of RAM in my PC...but I bought another stick of 128 and installed it so I could play World of Warcraft (wouldn't even let me install with only 128mb) So, that went fine, but the performace of the game is quite low, even with all the settings turned down..so I decided to swap the two 128 sticks with two 512 MB sticks. All is fine, PC reads that I have 1024 MB of RAM installed. But, when I try to play ANY 3d game...Halo, World of warcraft...my PC crashes right when I open them. On Unreal Tournament it will crash if i'm playing against 16 computer players, but it will run just fine if i'm only playing against one. Well, I took one of the 512 sticks out and swapped it for one of the old 128. Work's great now, games run just fine....but why won't my games work with both of the 512 sticks? Kinda bummed me out after I spent money on two and only get to use one of them...= \
Here's my specs:

HP Pavilion
VIA motherboard. Chipset: KT133A Southbridge: VT82C686 Sensor: 686A/B
AMD Athlon 1.1 GHz (yes pretty old)
ATI RADEON 9000 series, 64 mb
PC133 SDRAM

Hmm..that's something else...I have this program that tells me information about my computer. In RAM slot number 1 I have:

Module size: 128mb
Max Bandwidth: PC133 (133MHz)
Manufacturer: Samsung
Part number: M3 66S1723CTS-C7A
Serial number: 35E56310
Manufacturing date: Week 01, Year 19 (huh?)

Now when I select slot#2 from the dropdown menu heres what I get:

Module size: 512MB
Max Bandwidth: PC133 (133 MHz)
Manufacturer: 000000000000000
Part number: (nothing)
Serial number: (nothing)
Manufacturing date: (nothing)

Seems wierd it tells me the maker of the original stick but not the new ones....maybe that has something do to with it?

[Hengis]

Hi,

Did you set your Virtual memory after you upped your RAM?

right click on My Computer and select properties > Advanced > Performance/Settings > Advanced tab > Virtual memory/change > make sure that the virtual memory is set to "system managed size" click "set" then ok and re-boot

[Zimbo]

It sounds like that one 512 chip could be faulty.

Another thing might be that they are made by different manufacturers (sometimes causes trouble), did you buy the two chips at the same time from the same place?

If you look at the chips do they both have the same information written on the chips?

[rollin561]

Well, I tried to set the virtual memory, but... there's no option to set it to "system managed size" and there's no where you can "set" anything...there's 2 options, "Let windows manage my settings (recommended)" and "Let my specify my own settings"...there's also an option for "Disable virtual memory (not recommended)" then there's just an "Ok" button and a "Cancel" button.

The chips are both the same, ordered from newegg.com, ordered x2 of the exact same thing. They both have the same info written on them.

Tomorrow i'll try to switch them all around, and see if I get different results. Goin to bed for now

[Hengis]

Ok, in my reply and in your case the phrase "Let windows manage my settings (recommended)" replaces "system managed size" - what version of Windows are you using?

[rollin561]

Ahh...okie then. Using Windows Millenium (yuck). I tried swapping the two 512 sticks around, but with the same results....works fine with one 512 stick and an old 128, but not the two of them together. A thought I hadkeep in mind I don't know very much about computers) maybe the two chips are using up too much power, and it's causing problems somewhere? Or possibly causing too much heat?

[Zimbo]

When you put the new chips in one at a time on their own, are each of them recognised as being 512MB.

If so do you have another machine or a friends machine where you can test both these chips running together.