Weird memory problem ive had

[Spawne32]

ok heres the deal, a few months ago i noticed my computer got considerably slower, and then it would suddenly run out of memory and restart, well finally i went in bios settings and set it so it would check the ram on startup, much to my dismay i got a beep beep beep with a notice saying "MEMORY SIZE DECREASE" i forget what exactly it dropped down to but i had done some switchin of the ram sticks until finally the only combination that worked was one DIMM and one RDRAM 128 stick, normally i would have 256 but it wont recognize any memory in slot 0 it only works when you have the DIMM in 0 and the ram in 1, if i put both sticks of ram in it only detects 16megs and if i switch the ram and the dimm around it will do the same... someone had told me its possibly my memory controller is bad? system specs are in my signature link. thanks for any help you can give

 

[mechBgon]

Big picture first: if it isn't obvious, it's time to retire that thing Upgrade time.

To answer the question: Intel says you should put the first module in Bank 0 (the slot closest to the CPU) and fill the vacant slot with a CRIMM (continuity RIMM, the module with no chips on it) if the vacant slot isn't being used by a second module. It sounds like you have a bad module or else a bad mobo, and I wouldn't go putting any money into RDRAM at this stage of the game, not to get a 733MHz P3 running again.

 

[Spawne32]

yeh sorry i didnt mean dimm, i forgot what those things were called that fill empty slots, i guess ill just wait till i build my new comp this month it was just buggin me cus now that i got DSL the dsl downloads websites and stuff faster then the comp can load them lol makes for annoying web surfin