tgrotvedt's Journal: Bad DDR-RAM, bad motherboards, bad GeForce 4's.

I have in the past had a mid-range Red Hat 7.3 machine with these specs:

1.2 Ghz Duron, 256 MB SD-RAM, 40GB HDD...

You know the drill.

The motherboard was faulty, so I upgraded to a DDR-RAM capable board (an ASUS), got a 256MB memory chip, with a GeForce 4 and a Creative Vibra 128 to boot.

I planned to have a a partitioned Red Hat 9 install with a Win2k (for recording my band's demo), but only got as far as the Windows install.

First problem: network card was broken.

Then, the RAM was diagnosed as bad. MP3s skipped, things loaded slow. Yesterday, I picked up a new working chip (on warranty), and in the process, my GeForce stopped working all-together and had to be replaced (under warranty). Now, with a new GeForce and a 256 MB DDR chip, I take the box home and it runs sluggishly, with apps not installing (not enough memory).

More bad RAM.

I'll know what's wrong in the next few days (could it be the Motherboard From Hell?).