Can a stick of RAM "half" die?

[Deanodarlo]

My computer started rebooting randomly two days ago.

Then it was fine for several hours before it started doing it again.

At first I thought it may be the power supply giving out, but on the umpteenth random reboot half my RAM disappeared!!

For where there was once 256Mb crucial on a single stick, now lies 128Mb. Never new half a stick could die like this.

I've ran memtest on the remaining 128Mb, and it's 100% fine.

Questions:

Could a faulty power supply have killed half my RAM? Computer seems back to normal now half the stick is no longer used.

Has anyone else experienced this and found replacing the ram solved all issues.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[AppleTalking]

Yeah, I've read quite a few posts recently about this happening. I'm not entirely sure what causes it, but it sounds like the stick found some kind of defect and disabled half of itself (including the part with the defect) so that it could still be operational. I would call Crucial and request an RMA.

Good luck!
Nick

 

[Jen]

i have a stick of generic corsair that is rebooting on itself. sad fate for a stick of memory that did so well.



Jen

 

[Vegito]

Yes, happen to me... a 128 became 64 and keep getting some error.. gave it away...

 

[Deanodarlo]

Found quite a few people with 8KHA+'s with a similar problem after a few months of running.

Hope it's not the motherboard...............

 

[Jen]

the generic corsair memory i had on my epox 8k7a for over 6 months. i took it out and put in a abit kg7 motherboard thats when i started getting into problems. i thought perhaps i had timeings to aggressive so i set everything back to auto settings. still the problem was there. so i did a fresh format/install and it came back once more after a few days of testing..........



Jen

 

[LuDaCriS66]

Holy crap! The EXACT same thing happened to me just a week ago. One of my 256mb PC2100 DDR sticks from Crucial half died on me. I RMAed that stick and the DIMM that Crucial sent back to me is giving me problems too! WTF.... I would use the computer for about an hour and then it reboots my system. Then when it reaches the desktop of Windows XP Home Edition, it reboots the computer instantly even before the loading of the startup programs. It would keep rebooting itself until I take the DIMM module out. WTF is goin on..

I'm using an Epox 8KHA+ board too

 

[TriggerMan]

On my PC, one of my two Crucial DIMMs just died. I get inconsistent POSTs in terms of how much RAM I have installed (should be 512MB). Whenever I have the defective crucial DIMM installed, I get blue screen eventually. Doesn't matter if the DIMM is installed by itself or with the "good" DIMM.

Other thread

It also doesn't take much for the OS to crash. Browsing web pages in Win98SE w/IE6 manages to do the trick.

Just hoping that my post-RMA DIMM doesn't crap out as well.

triggerman

 

[SaturnX]

On my old system my 128MB stick became 113 one day, so yeah... had to replace that, yeah it can happen.

--Mark

 

[JoPalm]

I helped a friend with his computer and we figured out that one of 256 sticks was bad. Kept getting errors and windows and sometimes would not let you boot to windows giving us error and the such. Take it out and everything was fine. This was after we re-installed the OS twice....:disgust:

 

[Dim]

Yes, I had the same thing happen with Crucial DR 2100 ram a few weeks ago. 256M -> 128M. RMA'd it without a problem but it is striking how many have mentioned Crucial in this threat. Then, again, that may just reflect the popularity of Crucial ram on this forum.