Recycle your Computers & Technology with us.

Why does computer freeze up when adding additional RAM?

Posted By : sean of Katharine Gibbs School - New York on July 21, 2004

Follow us on Facebook   Follow us on Twitter   Follow us on LinkedIn

Let Data Doctors be your personal IT department today

Question is, my friends has a HP a pc 100 mb with windows 98. she had 64 m of ram and I put in additional 256. Now she has informed me that the pc freeze up on her what should i do to fix this problem.

Thank YOu

This question was answered on July 21, 2004. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.


When installing RAM especially when using an older model Mother Board it is recommended that you install memory of equal value.

For example:

If there are 2 slots for memory then each stick of memory that is inserted should be equivalent So if you needed 256MB of RAM it would be best to put 2 sticks of RAM each at 128MB's each or just one 256MB RAM stick Having a 64MB RAM stick and a 256MB RAM stick could render your system unstable or cause it to not boot up at all.

Another issue that might cause this problem is if the speed of each RAM stick is different Make sure that the type of RAM that you installed for her is PC100, you can usually check this by looking directly on the RAM stick itself The speed of the RAM may not be compatible with her Mother Board.

So if the RAM you just installed is compatible with her Mother Board, simply remove the 64MB RAM stick that was initially installed and replace that RAM with the 256MB RAM Also make sure that the 256MB RAM is installed in the first available RAM slot on the motherboard.

If you follow these steps and the system is still unstable then there may be a problem with the RAM itself or possibly with the slot on the Mother Board where the RAM was installed.

If it is the RAM itself you can replace it dirt cheap Now adays PC100 RAM is very inexpensive!

About the author

Posted by sean of Katharine Gibbs School - New York on July 21, 2004

Need Help with this Issue?

We help people with technology! It's what we do.
Contact or Schedule an Appointment with a location for help!