No, probably not. One of your memory sticks probably needs to be inspected, cleaned and reseated. If you can reach them safely (some are blocked by the floppy drive, etc.), take them out one at a time and run a pencil arasure lightly over the contacts and, making sure there is no debris left from the erasing, put the stick back, making sure it is in the correct direction and seated firmly. Memory chips do not in my experience go out very often except from mishandling, but the can get corroded. Some memory chips came constructed with different metals for contact with the motherboard sockets and were subject to severe corrosion with the motherboard. I sold memory back in 1995 when I was working in the service department for a CompUSA store, I was told to not sell the tin plated chips because of warantee problems! I hope this helps. Howard Rubin, Fortaleza Brazil RE: Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2002 21:27:09 -0500 From: Richard Allen <[log in to unmask]> Subject: xms driver won't load When I try to boot windows98se in a Digital 5120 I get the message xms driver won't load due to unstable memory at 00f00002. Is the motherboard trash? Thanks, Rick PCBUILD's List Owners: Bob Wright<[log in to unmask]> Drew Dunn<[log in to unmask]>