"wylbur37" wrote in message
...
I'm aware that you can use RAM that's of a higher or lower speed
than the computer expects. (It'll just run at whatever
the lower speed is).

But what if you put in a higher *amount* of memory
than the computer expects?
For example, suppose you have an old desktop computer
that has 2 slots, each with a maximum capacity of 128MB each.
If you put in 2 RAM modules, each with 512MB, the computer
will likely still work (although it'll only recognize and use
the first 128MB of each module).

But besides wasting RAM, is there any actual harm in doing this?
For example, can this cause the operating system to malfunction
or for data to be corrupted?

There might be some computers where it won't start if it has a ram
configuration that it doesn't recognise. In this case the BIOS will tell you
it doesn't like the memory configuration. But I'd expect that the BIOS will
just limit the amount of memory you can use - I had a laptop which had 768MB
of RAM installed but the BIOS would only ever see 512MB. I also had a
Windows Vista (32bit) pc which briefly had 6GB of RAM installed, the BIOS
would see all of it but Vista would only let me use 4GB (3.5GB really), so I
ended up taking the extra RAM out and using it elsewhere.

So, worst case, the BIOS will complain. If it won't start then take out any
excess RAM, but beyond that it shouldn't harm anything (not as far as I
know).
--
Brian Cryer
http://www.cryer.co.uk/brian