I have bought pc 3200 ddr ram to work on my AMD based system. The motherboard accepts up to pc 2700. However I'm pretty sure I have a stick of pc 3200 already in and it works fine, I understood ram cud adapt to slower speeds. Anyway I bought this ram and it had errors in memtest and caused system instability. I thought I had dodgy ram but am told by the seller it is because it is incompatible with my Motherboard. Are they right? will some ram not run at slower speeds? the make's name of the ram incidently is 'crucial'

Those are children tales. It is true that some CPU's just won't work under some frequency, but the memories should work at slower speeds especially when the difference is the standard's minimum (33MHZ from 200down to 166). And one more thing: every seller tryes by default to convince you that it's your fault in one way or the other because it saves them a lot of trouble and money. I suggest give it a test for 2x200MHZ system bus and if it should fail you have the yltimate proof that they _NEED_ to replace your mem stick. You should do it even if it runs ok in PC3200 mode. Alex

PC3200 should be backward compatible with PC2700 systems...but if the RAM tests bad using memtest86, it's probably bad. If you didn't already do so, try running the test with just one stick at a time. If the seller is giving you a hard time, try contacting Crucial directly or use their "Chat with a memory expert" option http://www.crucial.com/company/contacts.asp ASUS A7N8X-X Athlon XP 1800+ 8.5 x 200MHz 1024MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7 Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB WinME/WinXP Pro SP1

Thanks guys, I did the test with memtest and it failed, with 300 errors, he said he did the test and it did 15 passes and worked perfectly. I thought it was backward compatible, but they say my system is having incompatibility problems. How do I argue this? They want me to pay for the return packaging as it passed their tests. shud i get it and retest it? or keep pushing them about it, maybe for a re-test?

As I wrote above, "If the seller is giving you a hard time, try contacting Crucial directly or use their "Chat with a memory expert" option" http://www.crucial.com/company/contacts.asp If this is a reputable business, they shouldn't be giving you a hassle about it. If it's only been a short period of time since the purchase, they should just exchange it & send you on your way. I've returned bad RAM directly to Kingston, PNY, & Spectek, & each time, I had to pay for return shipping w/insurance (usually about $3)...it's sure better than having to pay $40-50 for a replacement. It took several weeks for the exchange though. How about posting the make/model of your board & telling us who the seller is? ASUS A7N8X-X Athlon XP 1800+ 8.5 x 200MHz 1024MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7 Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB WinME/WinXP Pro SP1

I'll post an update once I speak to them tomorrow, hopefully I can get either a replacement or another retest done. I'm certainly not going to pay for it to be returned when it's faulty. It's insult to Injury