Memory has changed...

[zephant0m]

Question about my backup computer, which is an old Dell Latitude C840:

It has worked fine up until a couple of months ago when I booted it and it gave me a "Memory has changed" notice before starting Windows (XP). It ran extremely slow and after I poked around, I found that it was showing 256MB of ram, not the 512MB that is installed. So-I opened it up and reseated both of the ram modules, booted it up and all was good. Then, a week later it did the same thing. Same fix worked again.

It has done this 5 times now. Do you think that there is an actual loose connection in one of the two ram slots or is this indicative of ram failure?

Any help would be appreciated - its an old clunker, but it does do the basics that I need when traveling.

 

[zephant0m]

time to toss that model out and go for a newer one.
it's either the RAM going bad, deteriorating physical connection, or system board starting to fail.
possible CMOS battery but that's a longer shot.
you need to troubleshoot..

I know - I already did that; I kind of just blew my wad so to speak on all my computer money building a new desktop. So the question is - I'd be willing to spring for new ram for my old clunker of a laptop just to keep it going for a while IF that was the problem. But if the mobo is history, I will have to junk it. How could I determine which part is faulty?

Thank you for any help you all could provide.