RAM or PC problem

well along time ago i had two problems with my pc and they both happened at the same time but they never got linked because the 2 should effect each other

the 1st was the loss of sound even though the card was correctly installed, updated and the drivers were correct, but it just would detect the device

the 2nd was when i replaced my 1gb ram with a 2gb ram card my pc became very unstable and very little would work (i just back to the 1gb stick in the end to save the hassel on this forums so that post didnt realy get anywhere)

why i know the two are linked
recently i have needed more ram too help the frame rate of a game i play (world of warcaft), so i put the 2gb stick back into my pc, low and behold when i turned my pc on it had become unstable again and there was no sound... so i thought too myself maybe i just knocked the sound connection while i was changing the ram, so turned it off and put the 1gb stick back in, turned my pc on and the sound was back, switched to the 2gb sound went again (i done this 6 times for each ram card so 12 times in total... 6 times the sound worked 6 times no sound card was dectected thus no sound each time it didnt work the 2gb ram card was in

the reason i ask if its its the ram or the pc is because

1)the pc was bought from ebay, so i know it contains cheap parts such as the psu which sounds like a jet taking off... sorta like the orginal xbox 360 use too

2) the ram is also from ebay and for 2gb was cheap.. but as it wasnt much i took the risk and bought it

so the question is why is the 2gb ram card causing my sound card to not work (as the two shouldnt be related at all but are) and why is this 2gb ram card making my pc so unstable, the few programs i can get to open close down with an error message after a min or so

i should also note that both the 1gb card and the 2gb card are PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM (yes my motherboard is a micro motherboard), also with my board has two ram slots, currently both with a 1gb card in each.. (2gb in total) when my pc becomes unstable and loses sound i have 1 1gb and 1 2gb in the slots (3gb total)

 

have you tried to use just the 2gb stick by itself? sometimes diff brands of ram don't play together very well. and unless your sound card has it's own memory, it will use some of your ram.

 

thats a good idea.. i feel stupid becuse i didnt think of that, il try it now and see if it works and post back in a few mins

 

ok well you was right about the sound, it does buff from the ram, and the two RAM cards wernt compatible, the 1gb ones have a U on it, after looking it i found that when they have a U there not very compatible with other RAM cards.

however
the sound now works but my pc is still unstable, i cant access ie still without it crashing or firefox or access any of my other computers programs then after about 3 mins my computer, crashed loaded up the blue screen (memory dump) and reset itself

this was with just the 2gb ram
so what could the problem be now? i know my pc runs 5300 ddr2 ram sd as its in my pc now just in the form of two 1gb sticks

 

could be bad ram...you should try and run memtest to see if it gets errors.
http://majorgeeks.com/MemTest_d350.html

also, your motherboard just might not like 2gb sticks of ram...some are just finicky like that. and some, it just might be over the size it recommends.

 

If you do a google search for your mother board + "memory" you can find out what if it can handle 2GB sticks, by checking if reputable vendors will sell 2GB sticks for it.

Unless I misunderstand your posts, your problems began when you installed the 2GB stick? What brand is it? Kingston, Crucial, Corsair, and a few others all offer a limited lifetime warranty on their parts, which means that if they have something comparable to send you the stick is probably under warranty.

 

my board does take upto 4gb of ram so thats 2*2gb cards, i knew that when i bought it as i planned to replace the RAM to get a real decent pc outta it, as for the type of ram i cant see a company logo on it just the void if removed sticker, like i said i bought it from ebay cheaply so that already said its not gonna be a quaility brand (even if it had a quaility name like kingston on it i would reguard it as a fake), alough i know the ram card works as the bios picks up the 2042 ram when its just the 2gb card in there

as for the test i ran it on my pc with just the 2gb stick in and it didnt find any errors....

however it still wont let most programs run, i open ie and it crashs. same with nearly every other program it let memtest run fine though

i checked the bios to have a look too see the frequency and that (not that the numbers made sence too me however there was a difference between the 1 2gb stck and the 2 1gb sticks......
i have an option in my bios called centeral control unit this contains the mhz etc

both times my CPU frequency was 266mhz ( i could change this between that and upto the value of 300) current FSB freq 266mhz and current DRAM freq 333

with the 2 1gbs cards in the FSB and DRAM were lit up (i couldnt select name it just skipped past but was lit) however with just the 2gb stick in these 2 were grey unlike before

 

That could actually be your problem.

RAM is not manufactured by each brand out there. They all buy their stuff from the same small number of manufacturers, either pre-assembled or just the ICs (the little black chips that do the actual work), and then put their brand on it and sell it to you. Here's the thing: Not all ICs are created equal. Or rather, they are, but some are more equal than others.

Chip manufacturers test their stuff before they sell it. They have their good name, and reputation, and all that other crap to protect. They sort the ICs as well so they can keep track of how well they passed the tests. Think of it as a class of college graduates... you have some honor students, some are not good enough for that, but they still maintained a good GPA, and then you have the C-average students. Yeah, they get to graduate too.

Cheap, no-name RAM tends to be made from the C-average student ICs, whereas major brands like Kingston and Corsair get a bit of both. The "Value RAM" ICs usually did not graduate with honors, for example, whereas their performance RAM ICs kept straight A's.

So you might just have a very low-quality component part there. That it is being recognized and correctly reported in BIOS means only that the part works, sadly not necessarily that it works well... You can try to set the RAM to 266 in your BIOS and see if that makes it run more stable, but it might be less hassle for you to just get a new one. Newegg and Amazon both have DDR2 dirt cheap right now. If you're not sure of what to get, we'll be happy to help you find it.