disappearing RAM?

[AlanHK]

A few months ago my PC started acting weird, crashing, finally wouldn't boot.
I discovered eventually that removing one of the two RAM chips fixed it.

I assumed the RAM was bad, and replaced it. (Now I have 2 x 512 MB chips.)
It took two or three tries, inserting and reinserting it before it was all recognised and would boot, and it seemed quite reliable, until yesterday, when it failed to boot. Powered it off and on two or three times, eventually it worked. Today I noticed on the POST that only came up to 500 MB. Even though the BIOS setup showed both 512 MB chips.

So I removed, cleaned and replaced the RAM chips and all was well... for now.

Obviously I feel a bit insecure about this.

I think the RAM itself is fine, is it likely just corrosion on the connectors or slots, hopefully now cleaned off? Or something unfixable?
I think if it recurs it will be time to replace the mobo, or maybe the whole PC

Anyone have any comments?

[budz]

Use memtest to test the ram for errors.

Ram is cheap these days depending on the type you need. Perhaps it's just time for you to build a new computer for yourself.

[rallynavvie]

Also inspect your motherboard's capacitors for any that are leaking or bulging. This sounds like an issue with the caps that feed the DIMMs going bad, had it happen on a PC I built for my sister.