my RAM card has an issue?

Question

i while back my computer started to not work well at all.. wouldnt even shut off sometimes. i figure out i had some viruses or somethin so i took one of my two RAM cards out. i had 1gb of RAM now i only have the 556 i think. the computer works fine now that the one card is out. i think that means the problem is in that card? is there anyway to fix it myself because the computer is starting to fill up with stuff and getting slower i need that extra RAm back? what can i do.. i dont have a lot of money so a computer tech is porbably out of the question but if i have to hey. thanks

Answer 1

You can put the ram back in and run this test: http://www.memtest86.com/ which will say if you are getting errors from the ram. If it has issues then you might want to just buy another stick of ram. If you can post the information about the ram, was it from Dell? Dell might replace it or whoever the company was which made the computer. If you bought the ram the company which made it might take it back and send you another stick which will work. I hope this helps, once it is messed up all you can do is send it back the company.

Answer 2

Well, if you take a RAM card out and the problem goes away, that is fairly good evidence that something is wrong with that card. You can confirm the diagnosis by putting the RAM card back in. If the problem returns, then it's pretty certain. But it might not. Maybe the Ram card wasn't seated properly in the first place. Maybe your power supply is on it's last legs, and can only support 1 memory card. Maybe the memory slot itself is messed up. There are lost of experiments you can do to narrow it down without hiring a repairman.