New RAM might have killed my motherboard.

Yesterday, I went out and bought a GeForce 8500 GT video card, and two 1GB sticks of PNY-brand DDR2 RAM, planning to upgrade my computer in order to run games more smoothly. Before this leap, I had a GeForce 6200 and 1GB of RAM installed in a BIOSTAR Motherboard with PCI Express x16 (and automated, on-board CPU overclocking), a somewhat older model, with a 1.8 gHz AMD processor (usually overclocked to 2.25 gHz).

I switched out the old video card for the new one and added the two gigs of RAM, and the first boot to Windows XP went without a hitch. I had my processor turned down to its regular speed, so at this point I wanted to speed it up some, so I restarted the computer, cranked the processor speed up, and attempted to boot again. After the Windows loading screen finished, the blue screen of death appeared. I restarted, turned the processor to its normal speed, and the blue screen came up once again. Unsure at the time of what exactly happened, I switched out video cards again and removed the two new gigs of RAM, expecting the problem to go away. It still blue screened... and to make matters worse, when prompted to select Safe Mode or Run Windows Normally, I couldn't boot in Safe Mode without getting the blue screen again. I brought this up today in a conversation with a very tech-savvy friend, and he suggested that the motherboard might not be built to handle that much RAM. After a bit of searching, it seems that this is a relatively common issue. Now I'm dealing with the possibility that the RAM might have ruined the motherboard, but I'm reluctant to go out and buy more hardware to replace what may or may not be broken. If this is, in fact, the problem, I won't really have a choice.

What are your opinions? What can I do to fix this horrible mess I've made of my computer?

 

I've had this happen before... put the old ram back in and see if it works

 

Putting the old RAM back in didn't work, but as it turns out, the OS got confused by the sudden RAM upgrade and the registry as corrupted as a result. I ran the Windows XP installation disk and repaired the installation, and the computer is up and running - quite well, as a matter of fact, since Fable: Lost Chapters (my first test of my video card's performance) is running at a smooth framerate with all settings maxed out. No help is necessary at this point. :-D