Kernal Panics since RAM Installation?

[advres]

OK, I never really had too many Kernal Panics before but since I installed two new RAM chips I have had 4 in 4 days. Under system profile the machine is noticing both chips so I am confused. Any suggestions?

 

[OutThere]

OK, I never really had too many Kernal Panics before but since I installed two new RAM chips I have had 4 in 4 days. Under system profile the machine is noticing both chips so I am confused. Any suggestions?

Good chance you have bad RAM. If you bought it from a reputable company, then get in contact with their tech support people. If you bought it used on eBay, or any other used location, then tough luck. Try taking it out and see if the kernel panics stop, then put it back in to see if they start again. Switch the slots that the RAM chips are in as well. Good luck!

 

[advres]

Good chance you have bad RAM. If you bought it from a reputable company, then get in contact with their tech support people. If you bought it used on eBay, or any other used location, then tough luck. Try taking it out and see if the kernel panics stop, then put it back in to see if they start again. Switch the slots that the RAM chips are in as well. Good luck!

Yeah - I bought it from OWcomputing. They have been real good to me in the past. If the chips were bad would they still show up under the system profiler. I got a bad chip once for my old G4 tower and not only did it cause my machine to do wacky things but it didn't even recognize that a chip was installed in the slot.

Also, I used my PB all day long at work and had no problems testing effects in Final Cut - I work in QA for an effect company. I got home and tried accessing a web page and thats when I got the kernal panic. It seems to me if it was the RAM that I would get the kernal panics when I was rendering and using RAM hogging apps but that wasn't the case.

I'm confused!

 

[bankshot]

It's almost certainly the RAM. Generally, panics due to bad RAM are fairly random, so I wouldn't expect it to be "logical" and crash more when in heavy use.

I see you have a 1.25 GHz PowerBook, which is notorious for being very picky about its RAM. We have two at work and ordered 3rd party RAM for them (2x512 MB to replace the original 2x256). The first batch was completely bad - both machines would crash fairly regularly. Usually sleeping and waking them up would trigger a panic or crash pretty easily. The original Apple memory has always been perfect.

We finally got the memory replaced and it's working much better, but I'm not 100% convinced. One of the machines has been running F@H 24/7 with the new memory for about 3 weeks straight with no problems. The other crashed a few times with the newest memory, but not nearly as often as the original 3rd party memory. The first machine is just sitting and crunching away, so it may just be that F@H isn't triggering a bad spot. The second machine is my primary work machine.

Right now I've got the original Apple memory back in the second machine and it's been rock solid ever since. I'm going to swap in the replacement 3rd party memory again and see what happens...

So yeah, contact OWC and see about a replacement.

 

[advres]

Thanks guys, I just swapped the RAM into alternate slots via OutThere's suggestion and see what happens. After I wrote the original post I have had for panics and I am not very happy. Hopefully OWC can help me out tomorrow because they are closed right now.

aghhhh.....Sometimes I hate ***** computers!!!! It's a neccesasy evil tho!