Programs crashing.

Hi, so here my problem. After a certain amount of time, or usage, any program I'm using will just crash, like someone terminated the process. I notice it happens faster with more RAM intensive applications. Firefox will take a while to crash, BF2 takes a few minutes.

I had 4 x512 in dual channel and i assumed the sticks were bad so i went about swapping them in and out but it makes no difference. The funny thing is if i have 3 sticks in it will not load windows xp, it'll just flash a blue screen and reboot when it gets to the windows loading screen. all 4 in and it will work, 2 in it will work. once again, when i can get into windows i cant run anything intensive, itunes will crash after a certain amount of songs...

is this a software or hardware problem? I started thinking my RAM slots were bad but that didnt make sense. memtest and windows diagnostic didnt show any errors.


specs:
intel EE 955
4 x512 (2x512 currently) DDR2 667
foxconn 975x board
9600GT

thanks.


edit: no, i dont have another PC in my house that uses DDR2 so i cant test the RAM

underclocking and raising the voltage on the RAM seemed to help, i can last a bit longer in BF2.

It sounds like you need to do basic hardware swapping, starting with your RAM. Sorry.

If things improved after changing your RAM settings in the BIOS then it's likely that's your culprit.

I would buy new RAM, then RMA the old one (many have lifetime warranties). Wait until you confirm no issues which confirms the old RAM is bad.

If your motherboard supports it you may be able to add the old and new together so your money isn't completely wasted.