My memory died

I sure hope you meant 2 GB and not MB.

I've never had that happen (and I've had a lot of things go belly up) but perhaps it was just a bad batch. It happens. Now if it happens again, then there might be some other problem, but chances are it was just a one-time borkfest.

Did you sneeze when installing?   

Bebi Bulma, yes I meant 2GB. You know how sometimes you know what you want to say, but different words go out. I hate when that happens. Since I've had the old memory back in the machine everything is running okay. Night Train, I did sneeze, but only because I used a can of compressed air (I know you're being serious). I bet people don't realize how much dust gets in there in a short time.    I wonder if I should run a check on the rest of the computer, any suggestions?

Some motherboards can be particular about ram brands.

It's not just about changing sticks, but sometimes changing manufacturers can be problematic.

If the 2 gig is a pair of sticks....try each one only....and in different slots.

Are both the old and new the same 'speed' and type?

There are particularly 2 parts of a computer that are delicate....ram and cpu .... both can suffer severely from static discharge, and/or soiled contacts [through skin oil].

Some mother board don't support more than 1GB Ram in two stick ram 2x512.
and your two Ram stick should be the same Ghz and type of Ram DDR2 not with DDR for example when you put them in PC you have the mater who you have now.

Describe you Stick and Mother board please.

Yeah, my memory died too. Oh wait, you meant your computer. Never mind.

Some good points Jafo except the memory was sent back to the vendor on Tuesday. My Gateway system has to have memory put in pairs. I didn't try one stick of the new with one of the old since they are/were different speed and size (1GB VS 256MB). Now I wonder if I should of tried them in different slot. I was under the impression that they needed to be installed in slots 1&3 than 2&4. I tried to take care in installing and removing the memory for the reasons you pointed out. Well I'll see what happens in a couple of days when the replacement sticks arrive. How about a diagnostic program on the system? Thanks for your reply.   

I have never had RAM fail.

MasonM, don't feel alone.

Quentin94 my motherboard can accept up 4GB. The two 1GB sticks were an upgrade from the two 256MB that came with the computer. I went from PC333 32MX8 to PC3200 DDR 400Ghz. Since the computer is Gateway I used to site to verify the right memory to use in the upgrade. Thanks for your reply.   

i don't know for your but i know for Dell and Packard bell on their website they are diagnostics tool for Ram (take a long time...) on boot.

And if you have your Pc's Guides look at this. In some of old Mother boards they are 4 slots 2 for DDR and 2 for SDR.

PurrBall, up till now I was able to say the same. Go figure.    

forget this

too slow for typing reply

MasonM, you devil, you the man!