V
Videodrome
Guest
I have a used e-Machine that I got for free from a cousin. It came with just a 1 GB Kingston RAM stick(PC3-10600). I recently tried to upgrade with a used 3 GB RAM (PC3-8500) combined with the original giving me 3 GB. Initial tests with MemTest86 (Hirens CD) seemed to suggest this would work. I even saw some improved performance with a few games I was trying.
However, I thought Debian was running odd. Since I was interested in Gaming, and Valve officially supports Ubuntu, I decided to try it and then Xubuntu. On both Ubuntu and Xubuntu, I've had Firefox and Chromium crash. Chromium gives me the "Aww Snap" screen saying something failed. After searching Google, I found a forum post saying a person confirmed bad RAM was causing their browser crashes.
I left the computer running all day with some browser tabs open while I was running errands and left only the original 1 GB RAM stick in. So far, I've seen no indication of crashing. I've also done a shorter test using only the 2 GB stick and it seemed to resolve the problem.
I am not a major hardware guy, so tweaking this desktop hardware is a good learning experience for me. I just thought I'd get a second opinion here on whether I'm on track with this.
However, I thought Debian was running odd. Since I was interested in Gaming, and Valve officially supports Ubuntu, I decided to try it and then Xubuntu. On both Ubuntu and Xubuntu, I've had Firefox and Chromium crash. Chromium gives me the "Aww Snap" screen saying something failed. After searching Google, I found a forum post saying a person confirmed bad RAM was causing their browser crashes.
I left the computer running all day with some browser tabs open while I was running errands and left only the original 1 GB RAM stick in. So far, I've seen no indication of crashing. I've also done a shorter test using only the 2 GB stick and it seemed to resolve the problem.
I am not a major hardware guy, so tweaking this desktop hardware is a good learning experience for me. I just thought I'd get a second opinion here on whether I'm on track with this.